


Red Matter and Shatter (complete story)

by Geelady



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-31
Updated: 2011-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-28 14:11:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/308693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geelady/pseuds/Geelady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rating: Adult. Angst. Violence. Set post Red Matter, naturally.<br/>Characters: Jane/Lisbon friendship, Jane/Cho. Adult but no smut.<br/>Summary: Red John sets something in motion that drives Patrick Jane to a desperate act, and Jane turns from the hunted into the hunter.<br/>Disclaimer: Not mine though I wish he was.<br/>Words: This will be a longish fic’. Those among you familiar with me know that means 20,000 words-plus. I have tried to stick to canon (other than the eventual Jane/Cho) as much as possible while still freely exploring my own ideas.</p><p> </p><p>Red John sets something in motion that drives Patrick Jane to a desperate act, and Jane turns from the hunted into the hunter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Matter and Shatter (complete story)

Red Matter - and Shatter (Case #3) (complete story)

Author: G. Waldo  
Rating: Adult. Angst. Violence. Set post Red Matter, naturally.  
Characters: Jane/Lisbon friendship, Jane/Cho. Adult but no smut.  
Summary: Red John sets something in motion that drives Patrick Jane to a desperate act, and Jane turns from the hunted into the hunter.  
Disclaimer: Not mine though I wish he was.  
Words: This will be a longish fic’. Those among you familiar with me know that means 20,000 words-plus. I have tried to stick to canon (other than the eventual Jane/Cho) as much as possible while still freely exploring my own ideas.  
*I know this story was supposed to feature Kristina Frye, but I had a better idea!

It was low and angry and nurturing and beautiful and it registered on your skin. It followed you. It was the growling baritone of a stalking jaguar in the Amazon forest. You didn’t see it, but you heard it; you felt it. It was almost sexual.

 

C—B—I

Jane took his time circling the hotel room of the victims, pausing only once to draw back the opaque plastic sheeting the police had draped over the mutilated bodies. The victims themselves were two policemen – male partners who had been having weekly romantic meetings behind their spouse’s backs.

From above the bed a smiling blood-drawn face mocked them and the investigators alike from the wall. A cheap hotel-room lamp had been placed to shine upon the face, the blood of its mask now drying from red into dull brown. “When were the bodies discovered?” Jane asked Lisbon, who was in the room with him examining the scene and, he knew, keeping one eye him as well.

“Coroner said they’ve been dead thirty to thirty-five hours.” Lisbon answered, glancing into the bathroom looking for what she didn’t know. Like a stray dog Red John had killed and moved on over a day ago but Lisbon always found herself asking the same question anyway - “So, you think copy cat or the real deal?”

Jane answered quietly. “Red John. Real deal.” He looked at the covered bodies. “Real as rain for them.”

Lisbon knew Red John left nothing behind at any of his crimes scenes that would translate into usable evidence. After twelve years of tracking his kills and hunting the killer himself, the authorities had exactly no concrete notions as to Red John’s identity. They had a type O blood sample and a DNA profile but no suspects against who either could be matched. The blood was simply a drop of blood, labelled and filed away, the DNA like-wise, a lonely string of mute genetic material.

To an onlooker it would appear that Jane wandered here and there in the room without direction, but Lisbon knew it was a misleading behaviour. Jane almost always saw things that more seasoned detectives missed. Rarely did his eye miss, or misinterpret, a clue. Being a former carnie conman Patrick Jane may have started out his professional life in a totally unrelated field, but after working with him for nearly four years Lisbon had come to understand that he was a natural born detective. “Anything else?”

Jane kept looking over at the bodies obscured beneath the blood –streaked plastic. “Two policemen. Lovers.” He said. “Not Red John’s usual victims of choice.”

“I know - a little weird.”

“Hmm.” Jane seemed profoundly sobered by the death scene. He was also the world’s most queasy detective, who hated the sight of blood.

“You think he’s trying to say something?” Lisbon wasn’t exactly thrilled to be in the room either. Her memories of Red John’s voice and the odour of his sour breath were still vivid in her mind and nostrils. Her experience under Red John’s cruelties had been terrifying and, regrettably, unforgettable. And every time she closed her eyes the things he had done to Jane while forcing her to watch was foremost in her nightmares.

Jane completed his scrutiny of the room. There were no family pictures to look over here, no personal items other than the small over-night bags the two lovers had brought with them, and nothing that stood out as out-of-place or unusual. It was a hotel room, nothing more. Except for the imprints in the carpeting that indicated a long dresser had been fairly recently moved out and a smaller one put in its place.

The manager hung in the doorway, grumbling about not being allowed to go home and eat his own dinner. In answer to her last question - “I have no idea.” Jane said. “But two dead, gay, policemen lovers? Seems like he’s already said a lot.”

Jane asked the grumpy hotel manager. “Excuse me, Mister Ewashen is it?” Jane pointed to the carpet marks. “When was this dresser changed out? There are marks here where a larger one used to be.”

Ewashen walked inside a bit to see where the investigator was pointing. “Not sure - couple of weeks ago maybe. I’m just the manager. The staff usually takes care of that stuff.”

Jane nodded. “Then we need to talk to the regular staff please – all shifts.”

Ewashen stuck his fists in his pockets. “You mean you need their phone numbers and all that?” His stomach growled.

Jane glanced at the reluctant man, growing impatient. “Yes, that’s exactly what I need - and a complete list of all the hotel guests who stayed here over the last three weeks. Would you please get those for us? Thank-you.”

Lisbon moved over to stand beside Jane, asking quietly. “What are you thinking? What’s with the dresser?”

“I’m not sure if that’s anything but I’d like to know if these dead policemen stayed here regularly and who might have rented the rooms on either side.”

It was a sound idea. Lisbon took out her phone. “We’re in for a long night. Take-out pizza okay with you?”

CBI

Lisbon and Jane spent the better part of the next day interviewing hotel guests, most of them over the phone and the hotel staff in person either at the local police station where the captain had been kind enough to provide an office for them to set up in, or at the hotel itself.

Lisbon poured a strong mug of coffee of questionable age and added double sugar and creams to make it palatable. Jane, sipping on his carefully brewed tea (the teabags of which he had brought with him from Sacramento), made a face at her concoction. “I don’t know how your kidneys get up every day.”

“Today my kidneys need the boost as much as I do. Forty-nine interviews, twenty-seven in person, and no one saw or heard a thing.”

Jane stared into his tea. “We’ve come to expect nothing less from Red John.” He didn’t sound convinced.

“You saw something in that hotel room didn’t you? Something I missed and you’re keeping it from me? Jane – we talked about this...”

“I didn’t see anything you didn’t see.”

“Which is another way of saying you inferred something we both saw - very cute. What did you infer? It was the dresser, right? The killer took the old one because it had some evidence on it or something? – that has to be it.”

Jane gave a one elbow shrug. “Cheap hotel, cheap rooms, cheap furniture, all probably wholesale discount, mass-purchased twenty years ago...” He stopped stirring his tea; the spoon paused above the cup, suspended in mid air.

“What?”

Jane dropped the spoon and left his tea behind. “We have to go back to the hotel.”

“Why?”

“Just come on, you can call the manager on the way.”

“Jane, it’s after midnight, the manager’s probably home asleep.”

“Then I’ll call him. Let’s go.” He took her elbow, encouraging her to accompany him out of the office and down the three front steps of the police station to his car.

Lisbon let him open the door for her and she climbed in. Despite herself, she dialled the manager at his home. “There’s no answer.”

Jane climbed in behind the wheel. “Never mind, it’s okay. We can handle this ourselves.”

“Handle what exactly?”

But Jane kept his own counsel until they arrived back at the dingy one level motor-inn. Lisbon followed him to the door with the police tape stretched across its entrance that said No Entry.

“Okay, we’re here. Now would you mind telling me what we’re doing here?”

Jane did not open the door to the crime scene. Instead he moved to the door on its left and tried the knob. It turned and he opened it slowly, peeking in through the crack, but it was impossible to see anything so he switched on the light. The room was empty. Jane looked around for only a second or two before closing it again.

Then he did the same with the next door down, only this time it was locked. The next door wasn’t and when he switched on the light, a man woke up from sleep and demanded to know what the hell he was doing.

Lisbon reached out and grabbed the door knob saying “Sorry, sir! Sorry” into the room while averting her eyes to the man’s nudity. She pulled the door shut again. To Jane “What are you doing?”

Jane only pointed. “Try those other doors. It’s a crappy motel, some of the doors won’t be locked or the locks’ll be broken. See if any furniture has been moved. Look for furniture imprints - carpet marks. We need to know which dresser is set against which wall.”

Baffled, Lisbon watched as Jane opened door after door, sometimes finding the rooms empty, sometimes waking up patrons, or disturbing others in the midst of private activities and who then cursed a blue streak at him before he managed to see what he wanted to see before closing the door again. In one room, the patrons didn’t wake up initially, so Jane brazenly turned on the lights and had a more leisurely look-see. They only began to stir to life and curse at his fleeing back when he was already on his way out, and Lisbon thanked her last lucky star that was, after four years of Patrick Jane, still miraculously shining down on her, its light an enfeebled flicker in an overwhelming sky.

Lisbon gave in and did her best to assist Jane in his weird endeavour but managed to accomplish it without waking anybody. In truth, only one of the rooms on her side that wasn’t locked had anyone in them, and luckily that person did not stir.

Jane finished with his doors and broke the tape across the crime scene room, waving at Lisbon to join him. Lisbon followed him in while Jane switched on the lights. The room was illuminated by two feeble lamps from the side tables but it was enough light for Jane who spent a few seconds looking at one side of the room, then the other. Just as Lisbon was about to ask him one more time for the reason behind his actions, Jane pointed to the small dresser, and then the other one across the room that was larger; longer and wider. “I was wrong before. The larger dresser wasn’t replaced. These two dressers have been switched.”

Lisbon remembered the carpet marks, the imprints where a larger dresser had been and now where a smaller one sat. “Yeah? So?”

“So why would the staff switch them? It leaves unsightly carpet marks. In all the other rooms, the dressers haven’t been moved. Why these two?”

“So you think - ?”

“Yes, I think Red John.” He said in answer to her question that he hadn’t finished hearing. Jane walked to the larger dresser. Putting his hands at one end and bracing himself, he pushed and it budged a little, then he pushed steady and slid the empty dresser aside enough to show where the imprints from where the smaller dresser’s edges used to stand that until this moment had been hidden beneath it. “You see? This one used to be over there, but in all of the rooms I checked, it’s the other way around. Someone moved this larger dresser here and the smaller one there.”

It was interesting and just the sort of thing Jane would notice. Most people would dismiss it as just what Jane had suggested – something old being routinely replaced by something newer. Only Jane would take a seemingly innocuous thing as the question of carpet marks to its chaotic end by making them into a mystery to be solved, and then attempt to solve that mystery by barging in on unsuspecting naked hotel guests to check his theory against the other, innocent and undisturbed furniture.

Only Jane would be that pestiferous. But Lisbon still wasn’t sure it meant anything. “Why would Red John want to move furniture?”

“Maybe so we would notice. Help me.” Jane said and pushed to move the larger, heavier dresser further over. Lisbon joined in and together they shoved it right against the outer wall.

When Jane turned back around to look, Lisbon followed his gaze. Behind the larger dresser, taped to the wall in a neat row, were photos of the CBI Homicide team members. A smiling face drawn in red felt pen had been scrawled over each of the faces in the photos, including Jane’s photo and her own.

Lisbon closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Whaddya’ suppose Tahiti’s like this time of year?”

CBI

“You’re all in danger.”

Van Pelt, not one to strongly voice her opinion whenever Jane had the floor simply because she found Jane a difficult man to out-shout, said “But that’s always been the case.” Looking at Jane - “Right?” The pretty red-headed agent now looked at the faces of each of her colleagues in turn. “I mean, haven’t we all been in danger from Red John since...”

“Since I got here.” Jane finished the uncomfortable truth for them. “To answer your question, Grace, yes. Red John doesn’t like for me to have friends.”

It wasn’t in keeping with the situation to voice it but Lisbon was gratified that Jane felt that way about the team. In the long, painful climb from his past, it was a healthy beginning. Lisbon was in agreement with Van Pelt. “Since when is that anything new to a CBI agent?” She pointed out. “The murders of the two policemen are another Red John game-play and we accept that for what it is. We move on with the investigation. I don’t see how this theatrical ploy changes anything.”

Jane was seated on his couch with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped tightly together. The couch was his habitual hang-out within the CBI offices and was starting to show its age, slouching right along with him. But Jane treated it like an old friend. It was where he caught cat naps during the day to make up for his chronic sleepless nights, a thus far never-ending insomnia with which he appeared to be afflicted.

“How can you say that?” Jane asked Lisbon, his voice tight with tension. “This is the first direct threat he has made against the members of this team and you’re shrugging it off like it was a joke. Red John does not make idle threats. He stirs up terror and then he follows through with murder. It’s what he does.”

Lisbon could see what sort of case they were all in for. If there was one thing that drove Jane to reckless endangerment of his own life, it was when someone he cared about was threatened. When Kristina Frye had been taken by Red John, it spun Jane into a twister of black emotions. “I know it’s no joke but what do you expect us to do, Jane? Hide? Run away? We’re CBI agents. We investigate and hopefully catch the bastard. That is what we do.”

Jane could see he wasn’t going to get anywhere with his boss on the matter, not that he could come up with any viable alternative to hiding or running away. “Then we need to double up. Don’t go anywhere alone – pick a partner.” Jane in fact stood and took Grace’s hand, pulling her to her feet and then sitting her down beside Rigsby where he put her hand in his, gripping their linked fingers in his own fists and though to cement them together.

Rigsby and Grace looked at each other and then at Jane. As most guys went, Jane was more physically expressive than most, but this was a grave sort of desperate contact he had just enacted. It was as though his hands had pleaded with theirs to see the danger the way he did, and to be convinced of it. And hold on.

Jane looked at Lisbon and then to Cho and although not taking either of their hands, he pointed to them with a finger, back and forth. “You each need to stay with a team member, each of you – twenty-four-seven - you can’t be left alone. Anyone.”

Lisbon exchanged telling looks with Cho. She asked Jane “For how long? We can’t live or function as a team like that, not beyond maybe a few days, a couple of weeks maybe, and then what?”

Jane looked at her, his eyes darting between her and the floor, the couch and back to her. “I’ll figure something out.”

Then Lisbon asked “And what about you?”

Jane looked at Lisbon. “Until then I’ll – I’ll hire a body guard. I’ll be fine.” He nodded as though saying it would make it so.

Lisbon had expected as much. Jane ran shaky fingers through his blonde hair and Lisbon knew in every way that he did not only believe Red John’s threat was real – and honestly there was no reason not to – but that Jane was deeply and thoroughly terrified by it – and by Red John. Considering his encounters with the killer, she could hardly blame him. Lisbon’s cellular phone rang.

She stood to walk to her office for some privacy. As she passed Cho, she covertly tapped his elbow to get him to follow. Cho waited behind for a moment and said “Excuse me.” heading off toward the Men’s room, but instead of going inside he took a detour to Lisbon’s office. As the blinds were closed on her office windows, no one would be able to see their private conversation.

Cho stepped inside, closing the door behind him. “You wanted to see me?”

She did not mince words. “What should we do about Jane?”

Cho understood. Jane on a Red John case was Jane obsessed, taking risks and endangering himself and the team, and sometimes making the kinds of mistakes that had before nearly cost him his life. “I think we should do what he wants – for now.” It was the simplest solution and the one that would ensure the safety of all members of the team.

Lisbon nodded. That had been her decision, too. By the time she had walked into her office, it seemed the obvious one. Somehow they needed to keep Jane under control and out of danger. Secretly as a group they had all agreed to take care of him; protect him, and granting his request, if only temporarily, seemed the only feasible way to do that in the particular situation I which they found themselves. “If it’s okay with you, I want Jane to stay with you.” She said knowing Cho cared about Jane as much as she did, maybe more. “I can crash at Tommy’s. I don’t care what Jane says, I don’t want some rent-a-cop stranger watching his back.”

She sighed deep and long, confiding in her most level-headed agent. “And Cho - off the record - we’re doing this to keep Jane on a short, controlled, for lack of a better word – leash, because we both know Red John left those pictures more to screw with Jane’s head than as a threat to us.”

“If we guessed that much about the photos, then Jane probably has, too.”

“Yeah, but the difference is he’ll ignore it and get himself killed. Short leash.”

Cho nodded. “Agreed.” A thousand scenarios about how in the next few weeks this could, and probably would, go wrong passed through his mind. Jane, a man with no real ethical commitment to the law, a free man who had made his own rules for most of his life, a man who disdained the confining collars of society - wearing a leash. Good times.

CBI

Lisbon came back from a meeting with Bertram and announced to her team “Listen up. Bertram signed off on the working, travelling and pretty well everything else in teams – that was a verbal sign-off, nothing on the record, okay, so don’t anyone make me regret this by charging into anything alone. Clear?”

Lisbon next looked directly at Jane who was leaning against Cho’s desk with his arms crossed in a way that seemed, she thought, entirely too self-righteous. “And Jane, you’ll be teaming up with Cho, no argument - got it?” She walked over the protest he was about to make by raising her voice and ignoring his expression. “‘Cause if not this whole thing is a no-go.” She gave him a few seconds to say any word at all, and he looked away, for once declining to stand his ground.

Lisbon looked at them all once more. “No questions? Good.” She said. “That’s settled. Now we still have an investigation to do – so let’s get to work finding Red John the serial and cop-killer. Rigsby, Van Pelt - anything on the other hotel guests?”

Van Pelt opened her own file where the data from the interviews Lisbon and Jane had done in San Jose she had compiled. “Most of the guests were one-nighters, and most could be eliminated as couples traveling alone or with children, families who stayed a maximum of three nights, and by the way, it seems that everybody lied about something. Mostly stuff we don’t care about like someone cheating on a spouse with a hooker or dealing drugs from the hotels and motels in the area.

“But there were four other possible suspects based on the night they stayed over – in this case the Saturday night/Sunday morning of the murder, and the hotel rooms booked. One of those rooms was booked by two men two doors down from the crime room, one guy of who spent the night gambling at a local casino, leaving the other alone in the room.

“The other two guests were single males in their late thirties who each rented a room on either side of the crime room. One of those men lives in San Francisco, the other in San Jose. I figure we should check out this last guy first since he owns a house in San Jose and if so, why would he be staying at a hotel? And because he rented the room next door to the crime scene two nights in a row prior to the night of the murders –where, according to the night staff, on those nights he had in at least three to six “visitors”.” Van Pelt made bunny-ear finger quotes in the air.

Lisbon nodded. “Cho, you and Rigsb-“ She stopped, suddenly remembering their partnering-up agreement. “I mean Cho, you and Jane go bring this guy in. And Van Pelt, check this guy for a criminal record. Prior to the interview I want to know everything, and I mean everything about this guy. Let’s get some ammo on him first.”

CBI

“You want to tell us who your visitors were, Mister Coates?” Van Pelt asked.

Jane listened to her and watched the interviewee’s reactions and expressions – or lack there-of. Van Pelt would swear Jane could sense a suspect’s body temperature and feel his heart rate from across a dining hall. Jane hung by the wall, lurking in the room very much, Van Pelt thought, like a spider, patiently waiting for the prey to walk too close.

Evan Pelt was certain that every nuance on the suspect’s sweating face; every random eye-movement, and each unexplainable twitch of his frazzled nerves were noted and mentally filed away by Patrick Jane, to be later dissected like a lab frog. It was one of the reasons Van Pelt found it so difficult to talk to the man – she always had the queer feeling that Jane already knew what she was thinking anyway.

She didn’t dislike Jane; he had more than made up to her for horse incident, topping off a verbal apology by bringing her a chocolate horse decorated with gumdrops and Jelly-Belly’s. The gesture had revived her good will toward him. But she still didn’t completely trust him either. With Jane, you never knew exactly where you stood. Not really.

“Answer the question.” Jane said to the man.

Coates looked over at Jane with blunt disdain, his face silently asking the question: Why is Eliot Ness here?

Van Pelt read from the file before her. “You’re a hustler, Mister Coates, isn’t that correct? Women and men pay you to have sex with them. But you usually work out of a hotel in Oakland, not the Budget Inn Motel in San Francisco, so why the sudden change?

Mister Coates, a black, good looking man in his early twenties sat back and crossed his arms. He was sweating but trying not to show the fear that came with it. “New owners there, so I had to switch. I also moved to San Francisco five months ago to be closer to the action. More clientele, better money.”

“And what about the night these murders happened? Thursday of last week? You were there, the register shows it. You signed the book and your customer paid for it on his credit card, yet you claim to have heard nothing.”

“That’s right, I heard nothing. Me and him was...kinda busy if you get my meaning.”

Van Pelt did not give up. “You have a history of violence, Mister Coates. Four years ago you were convicted of assault in the first degree. You nearly killed a man in a bar fight by slashing his throat with a knife. You then dipped your finger in his blood and drew what you later described to the arresting officer as “war paint” on your face.”

“A mistake. I was drunk and he owed me money. Pissed me off.”

Jane asked from the wall. “You almost killed a man for money. How much?”

Coates turned his head away from the investigator who for the whole interview had been leaning against the wall so still and quiet.

“How much, Mister Coates?” Jane walked to a chair and angled it so he could see Van Pelt out of the corner of his eye but for the most part face the suspect and study him with an intensity of focus that soon had the man squirming. “No, because I’m really curious. I know what it is to take people for money, believe me, but I’ve never tried to murder anyone for it, so tell me, really - what sum is worth a man’s life? Hmm?” Jane asked, watching, waiting. “A hundred dollars? Two hundred – a thousand?”

Coates’ knee was swaying back and forth beneath the table.

“Are you nervous, Mister Coates? Did you think we were just going to believe you and let you go? You’re not that stupid, are you? I mean, you’re clearly not a genius but you were next door, one wall away all night long, while two policemen were getting their throats slashed by a known serial killer. And you claim you heard...” Jane shook his head in the negative “nothing. Not a peep. Not a peep from a sheep of Little Bow Creep.”

Coates looked back at Jane but where Coates was sweating and his knees were twitching, Jane was as cool and calm as a glassy lake. Coates looked over at the pretty red-head who had stopped talking. “Is he screwed on right, lady? I already told you – I didn’t hear nothing.”

“Didn’t hear anything.” Jane corrected him. “Anything. Don’t throw insults at me until you learn how to speak properly.”

Van Pelt jumped in. Jane had that look in his eye, the look that said he was fantasizing about doing some serious physical damage to their suspect before it could be proved he was a suspect. “Mister Coates, were you not also prosecuted on a charge of attempted rape of a minor six years ago?”

“Which was thrown out.” Coates said, regaining some of his composure and a good share of smarm. “No evidence. ‘Cause I didn’t do it.”

“Well, you weren’t convicted,” Jane argued, “but you certainly did it.” He smiled, one not meant to charm or distract, merely to mock.

Van Pelt recognised that specific Jane-smile, it was the only one she hated.

“Come on, Mister Coates, be honest.” Jane continued. “You have a chance to redeem yourself here – a little. Tell us the truth. You heard everything that was going on – oh you might not have perpetrated the crime or participated but you heard it for sure, only you were in the middle of a business transaction. Money was on the line.”

“Redeem myself?” Coates appealed to Van Pelt. “Is he serious?”

Van Pelt had no idea what to do. She glanced to her right where behind the two-way mirror she knew Cho and Lisbon were watching and listening. Maybe they’d come and put a stop to the interview before Jane went too far - as it seemed to her he was already dancing on the edge of.

“Sure I’m serious.” Jane said, his voice growing low and dangerous and Van Pelt recognised the timber of it. It was Jane’s hypnotist voice - the one Jane had once upon a time used to manipulate whole crowds of people. And Jane could alter its resonance to achieve almost any end when speaking to a group or to an individual. It was low and angry and nurturing and beautiful and it registered on your skin. It followed you. It was the growling baritone of a stalking jaguar in the Amazon forest. You didn’t see it, but you heard it; you felt it. It was almost sexual.

“See, one day you’ll be eighty years old and sitting somewhere, maybe in a nursing home but more likely in a jail cell, and you’ll be remembering this day. This day where you could have helped solve the murder of two policemen brutally murdered in their beds. You could have.” Jane underlined. “You could have,” Jane repeated again “but instead you choose to ignore the gurgled screams and the strange thumping and went about earning your living.

“You’ll sit in that wheel chair or lie on that death-bed and realise “I could have become fully human again that day, instead of staying the heartless, cowardly, barely-human thug I am now. I could have done something for someone else for the first time in my life. I could have redeemed myself.”.”

Jane stood up, pushing back is chair with more force than was necessary, and walking to the door. “Redeemed.” Jane said, taking once last look at their suspect, and then dismissing him from his thoughts. “It’s a good word, isn’t it?”

CBI

On the other side of the glass, Lisbon turned to Cho “Keep an eye on him.”

Cho found Jane in the kitchen boiling water for what Cho suspected was badly needed strong tea, and biting his thumb-nail. “The guy’s no prince, but he probably had nothing to do with the murders.” Cho had listened to Jane’s speech about redemption with burning fascination. It was no great stretch to infer that Jane had probably been speaking of himself as much as Coates.

“None of them did the killings, but one of them helped Red John.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Jane poured steaming water into a teapot. “Because O'Laughlin, Rebecca, Sherriff Hardy, Stiles, Todd Johnson - I could go on.”

“No, I got your point.” Cho pulled put a chair and took a load off. “We have two other witnesses – “

“Suspects.”

“Whatever. Two others to interview. One of them might have heard or seen something.”

Jane sat opposite Cho with tea-in-hand. “Oh, there’s my Cho – the optimist. You’re very good for me Cho.”

Cho wasn’t about to rise to what could be verbal bait on a hook. “Oh? How so?”

“You remind me not to be so gloomy.”

Hm.” Cho wasn’t sure what to make of it. “Weird. But good. I’m glad you’re at least considering that you could be wrong about Coates.”

“I didn’t say I was wrong, I’m just determined not to be so gloomy about being right.”

“So you think Coates is another agent of Red John’s?”

“Maybe not an agent but certainly a helper. I think Red John paid Coates to pretend to be deaf and blind.”

“But Coates had visitors into his hotel room, if there was something to see or hear one of them ought to have noticed.”

“Coates had guests in and out. He might have warned Red John when to be quiet and when to...indulge himself.”

“How?”

“Oh, knock on the wall, a phone call, there are ways to do these things.”

Cho conceded it was odd that Coates heard nothing but he could simply be lying to save himself time in court. Like many street walkers and druggies, he didn’t want to be bothered by the murder of two strangers, let alone cop strangers. Cho said as much to Jane.

“Sure, it’s possible. Coates may not be a willing Red John agent but I believe he saw or heard something and soon we’re going to learn that I’m right.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask-“

Jane sipped his tea, sighing. It was good to sit and talk with Cho, and drink tea. One can easily do without so many of the daily pleasures in life as long as one had the little moments. “Red John will tell us.”

CBI

Red Matter - and Shatter Part 2

 

CBI  
...as far as Cho was concerned, the presence of the puckered scar did not detract from the rest of Jane’s physical appeal in the slightest. The skin surrounding the scar was to Cho every bit as erotic as it had been before, and the scar’s hated existence on his flesh provided a stark contrast to the silky smoothness of the rest of his body, bringing even more emphasis to the remainder of his unaffected and still beautiful skin.

CBI

Cho hung up his desk phone and glanced over at the team. Jane was sitting still on his couch, his suit jacket draped over his knee, deep in think-mode with a thumb worrying his bottom lip, and Lisbon was discussing with Rigsby and Van Pelt the results of the interviews with their two remaining possible witnesses.

“The upshot is none of them gave us anything concrete.” She said. One had heard “strange noises” but didn’t bother getting up to investigate them, and the other had taken a sleeping pill on top of the six pack of beer he had consumed, sleeping the night - and most of the next morning - away. Their witnesses had brought them exactly nada closer to learning the identity of Red John.

He had to tell them the rest of the good news. “Boss?”

When Lisbon looked up, he said loudly enough for all to hear it. “That was Sergeant Caswell at the San Jose Second Precinct – Coates turned up dead last night. Shot in the chest and his throat slashed.” It wasn’t an enormous surprise to any of them, in particular not to Jane who just shook his head.

After many hours un unsuccessful grilling by Lisbon, Cho and Rigsby, Jane had vehemently protested Lisbon cutting Coates loose two days before, but they’d had nothing to hold him on, not a thing. And it was the law.

“You should have held onto him.” Jane said again. He was not looking at Lisbon but everyone knew it was meant for her. It was an argument he had made to Lisbon at the time, over and over. Jane suddenly stood up and walked from the room without a word, disappearing into the hall in the direction of the men’s room.

Lisbon looked over at Cho who nodded, following him, but in no hurry. Cho didn’t mind keeping an eye on Jane, and he certainly didn’t mind Lisbon’s short leash rule – he loved Jane, he wanted to protect him – but he was beginning to wonder how long this babysitting assignment was going to go on. All of them were already getting to the point where they’d had enough of each other. Even Van Pelt and Rigsby were on each other’s nerves. So much so that where-ever Rigsby was in the office Van Pelt could be found some eight to twelve feet away. After two years if there had been any residual feelings left between them, Jane’s buddy-system was dissolving them rapidly.

Only Lisbon seemed unaffected by the group-imposed restriction, but then she was staying with family. Family by nature got on each other’s nerves, but as it was family it was also that much easier to ignore or laugh off. To family you granted more license to bug the hell out of you.

But Jane hadn’t gone anywhere but the men’s room. Cho waited outside and down the hall. He spent a few minutes shooting the breeze with Cyndi, a young university graduate who worked on the clerical side of the department, while watching for Jane to exit the men’s room which, after a short minute or so, he did.

Cho joined him in the kitchen.

Without turning around Jane asked “You here to jerk the Jane-chain?”

Cho shrugged, sitting. “The buddy-thing was your idea.”

Jane did not join him at the table, instead choosing to lean against the counter and sip his glass of tap water. “My idea was to keep us all safe, not for someone to trail my every move like a fox-hound – that was all Lisbon.”

“’Course. She’s worried about you.”

Jane stared into his glass. “I could walk out that front door right now – quit, and she wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.”

“Why would you want to?”

“If Red John has me all alone, he’d leave all of you in peace.”

At this juncture, Cho was beginning to have his doubts. “You said it yourself; he’s made a direct threat against the team.”

“He’d leave them alone.”

It was the way Jane said things most of the time, not the words he used, that usually convinced Cho that Jane was right, and this time Jane’s tone of voice left no doubt in his mind – Red John would ignore the team if the team wasn’t there for him to use to drive Jane mental with worry, and Jane undoubtedly understood that as well.

The problem was Jane. Cho knew Jane would not be willing to take the chance, however slim, that Red John would not also target someone on the team, even if the blonde was no longer working with them. Jane had come to value them too deeply to leave, even if the police work itself ceased to be of great interest to him, the people still were. Gradually, over the years and through the trials and tragedies they had, as a group and as individuals, embraced Jane, and taken him into the fold. He had become their orphaned adoptee and they his family. “Where do you want to eat dinner tonight?”

Jane shrugged, an almost not there one-shoulder gesture, uninterested in the thought of food. “Doesn’t matter.”

“I doubt Coates would have talked.” Coates was a liar and a criminal, but he wasn’t a complete fool. Talking would have implicated him in a double murder against two law enforcement officers. Up against a good prosecuting attorney, that would have translated to life without parole.

Jane carried his glass with him back toward the offices. “We’ll never know now.”

CBI

“Hey Rigsby, come on, I’m dying for lasagne.”

Grace Van Pelt, dressed neatly but casually in well fitting jeans and a long-sleeved black sweater, waited inside but next to the outside door to her apartment building. Her hair was in a pony-tail and her boot-clad foot tapped the hard ceramic impatiently.

Rigsby was a man who liked good grooming, despite his tendency to leave clothes everywhere through-out her apartment. She had made the choice of them sharing her two bedroom place instead of his because frankly she hadn’t liked the idea of crashing at his, which was what they had usually done back when they were still dating and Rigsby’s idiosyncrasies were still more endearing than annoying. Secondly, her two bedrooms were not side-by-side. There was a small office in between and that meant she wouldn’t be able to hear him at night and there would less chance of bumping into each other during a night bathroom trip.

“I swear he’s worse than a woman.” She muttered to herself.

Rigsby’s voice called out to her through the slightly ajar door of her ground level apartment. “I’ll be right there, don’t leave without me.”

Again she whispered. “I won’t leave without you – god.”

It was stuffy in the foyer and Van Pelt turned the knob of the outside heavy wood and smoke-glass door, stepping outside to the sidewalk to get a breath of fresh air. It felt wonderful to be out of the confining spaces of either the office or her apartment. What she wouldn’t give for a good day in the field catching bad guys or – she felt rather desperate – even some door-to-door leg work would be fun. Anything but sitting at her desk filling in back-logged reports while waiting for something to happen.

Van Pelt hated the Red John cases because there was usually nothing for her to do, at least nothing Lisbon would let her do yet. Lisbon and Jane attended the crime scenes, Cho and Rigsby got to at least round up suspects, while she was usually left to do the boring research or, once in a while if Lisbon thought she was up to it, stalk a suspect with one of the other agents or interview a witness. Talking to Coates, along with Jane, had been the highlight of her week.

The best cases were those where they all had to be out of town somewhere more exotic than Sacramento. During those rarer times, Lisbon used her most inexperienced agent to good advantage. Often it was she and Rigsby hunting down a suspect while Lisbon went off with Jane and Cho was left to foot it alone. Lisbon was a good boss but she was overly cautious.

Van Pelt felt completely ready to join the team members in the field more often but Lisbon wasn’t yet willing to give her the chances she needed to prove herself. It was frustrating.

Van Pelt sighed, turning back to the front door she had left open. “Rigsby! I swear to god –“

“Hello.”

The voice behind her made her gasp and she spun around. Seeing it was just Nyren the building manager, Van Pelt threw him a smile and said “Sorry.” as he and a friend wedged by her into the building with pleasant nods.

He had appeared from seemingly nowhere and now her heart was pounding. “Shit.” She said under her breath once he was out of earshot. The tension of the last week was draining her, making her jumpy. She never imagined she would have gotten to the point where everything Rigsby did would drive her nuts but his half hour long showers and constant primping in front of the mirror to ensure every hair on his head was in place – and his worry over how much of it he was losing - had taxed her every nerve.

Van Pelt looked across and down the street. There was the restaurant - right there. She could see it for Christ’s sake. One short block away people sat enjoying their dinner while she stood out on the steps of her own apartment building waiting for a man obsessed with his hair. “Screw this – Rigsby!” She yelled back into the foyer. “I’ll meet you there.”

Van Pelt knew it was breaking the rule but it was Jane’s rule, one that Lisbon was currently supporting maybe but dinner was one block away. She would be fine for that distance. There were people on the street, couples walking dogs - even Red John wouldn’t try anything in such a public spot.

Van Pelt walked a few dozen yards and stopped, looking back to see if Rigsby had yet made an appearance outside. He hadn’t. “Holy cow.”

She walked on, every-so-often looking behind her, not only to keep an eye on the goings-on where she could not see but to check on Rigsby. She was about to cross the street when it dawned on her that she could just call Rigsby to check on his ETA for dinner, the get a table once she arrived. They used to eat in a booth, it was more private. Now when on the job and they had to eat lunch out somewhere, it was either in the car, or at a table in the middle of the restaurant. Both were less intimate.

The phone at her apartment rang. And rang, and rang. Van Pelt glanced up the street to see if Rigsby was finally outside and therefore had no idea she was calling him on her apartment land-line. But he wasn’t.

Van Pelt turned and began walking back toward her apartment building, this time dialling Rigsby’s cell phone, but he did not answer it either. Van Pelt’s casual walk turned into a fast stride and then, as the images of Rigsby maybe hurt, maybe cut with Red John’s knife, maybe even dead and posed in her spare room like all the other victims sprang to her mind, she broke into a run. At least she had thought straight enough to bring her weapon with her.

Van Pelt drew her weapon and, holding it in her right hand, unlocked the front door of her building with the key in her left. It was awkward as she was not left-handed but she managed it. Stepping inside the foyer she listened for any sound that was out-of-place.

The only one she could hear was the crackling of what sounded like frying bacon. She could smell nothing. Often the halls of her building, as with any apartment complex, were filled with the clashing smells of a variety of foods cooking. Tonight there was nothing. But then she and Rigsby were eating late, as they often did on cases where the team had to work on into the night.

Van Pelt walked up to her door which was still open, only it was a little more ajar than the way she had left it. Keeping herself out of the line of any potential gunfire, she reached out a hand and pushed the door until it swung open almost all the way, then stepped inside. “Rigs-by??”

He did not answer. The only sound was the sound of frying bacon. A smell reached her nostrils, and then she saw, down the hall, black smoke beginning to billow out of the spare room. “Oh my God.”

Van Pelt raced down the hall and kicked the spare room door open and rushing in, expecting her partner to be engulfed in flames or tied up, the fire licking at his feet.

But, other than an object on the floor the size of a dog melting in the flames, the room was empty. It was, however, filling with toxic smoke and Van Pelt coughed. She could see well enough and, avoiding the burning what-ever-it-was, wrenched open the door of the closet to be sure Rigsby wasn’t in it, tied up and gagged, waiting to burn to death.

It was empty. Van Pelt grabbed a folded up quilt and spread it out, tossing it on the burning thing to douse the flames. But the opposite happened. Without warning the flames shot up to the ceiling like a rocket and began tonguing their way across it to the curtained windows, setting them alight and eating the diaphanous fabric in seconds. Suddenly Van Pelt found herself in a room filled with thick smoke and an out-of-control fire and both stood between her and the doorway.

“Grace!” Rigsby was suddenly there in the room across from her and aiming a small fire-extinguisher at the base of the burning source, letting go with a full blast. It gave her enough space to skirt by the flames without getting scorched but the device did not have the chemical capacity to douse the entire room and when it slowed to a trickle, Rigsby tossed it away and grabbed her arm, pulling her along.

In the few seconds they had been in the room, the carpet and bed had quickly caught on fire, the flames and heat intensifying and spreading fast. Rigsby knew it was nearing the flash-over point. “Come on!” He grabbed her arm and hauled her from the room and down the hall until finally they were outside the building itself where he dialled nine-one-one. “This is Agent Rigsby of the CBI. I need Fire, PD and ambulances to 6274 New Grange Apartments - on Essex Street. We’ve got a floor level apartment engulfed and injuries.”

With one lapel of his jacket over his nose, Rigsby hung up his cellular and returned inside to pull the wall alarm and pound on however many doors he was able to in warning before the hall got too smoky, shouting at any who were home to hear him to get out of the building. When he returned to Van Pelt, she was doubled over on the sidewalk on shaky legs, gasping for air and coughing up black phlegm. She had clearly taken in a few lung full’s of smoke and needed oxygen.

Rigsby stood near her with a comforting hand on her back while she coughed and coughed, and they waited for emergency services to arrive. When they did and the EMT’s took charge of Grace’s welfare, he called Lisbon.

As the ambulance took Grace away with sirens and lights flashing, more ambulances began to arrive in readiness for any other injuries that might arise. Rigsby watched the fire fighters enter the building with their hoses and other equipment, but by that time it wasn’t just Grace’s apartment that was on fire. The fire had spread extremely fast, and three other suites were already involved.

Rigsby watched the smoke billow out of the windows of Grace’s apartment building. He shook his head, stunned at what had just occurred. In seconds, a planned pleasant dinner out had turned into massive destruction and Grace herself heading to the hospital with smoke inhalation.

His hands squeezed into hard fists at his sides, Rigsby let go of some of the shock and frustration of it, shouting as loud as he could (and not caring who heard him), “FUCK!”

CBI

Lisbon had a few words with the investigating officers then approached Rigsby who was leaning against the hood of her car. “You can drop off your statement to them tomorrow, and if they have any questions, you can answer them then.”

Rigsby nodded. “Thanks boss.” He wanted to get to the hospital, not sit by some flat-foot’s desk and watch him two-finger type his report.

“Can you tell me what happened? How the fire started?”

Rigsby choose not to voice his belief that Van Pelt had decided to go to restaurant ahead of him. With Grace in the hospital, it seemed a trivial breach of Jane’s buddy protocol now. “Grace was waiting outside the building for me, at the back in the car. I was a little slow I guess and she was hungry. Anyway she was safe in the car. You know –auto-locking doors. We were going to walk to the restaurant just down the block but I saw her note on the door saying she had a better place in mind so I went out to the car to join her, only she wasn’t there. So I figured she’d gone back inside – so I went back inside to check, and that’s when I found her in the room with the flames already out of control.”

Lisbon nodded. “Well, you probably saved her life.”

“Don’t feel much like a hero.”

Lisbon didn’t argue the point. “Any idea what started the fire?”

He shook his head. “No. It happened so fast. By the time I came back inside it was already too late to put it out.”

To Lisbon that suggested an accelerant and Rigsby she was certain, with his background in the Arson Unit, was already considering that. But she held that conversation back for later. “Come on, I’ll drive you to the hospital. We’ll check in on Grace.”

CBI

Cho and Jane were already there waiting outside the door to Van Pelt’s private room.

“How is she?” Lisbon asked, walking up trailed by Rigsby.

“Sleeping.” Cho said. He was standing by the door to her room with his arms crossed like a soldier ready to defend his country. Jane was standing beside him in a far more relaxed posture sipping from a cup. His body may have looked relax but there were tiny lines of tension around his eyes and a red blush to his bottom lip where even now he was absentmindedly biting it over and over.

“She’ll be okay though?’ Rigsby asked, anxious to check on her in person, in the room, where nothing could get to her or hurt her so long as he was right there beside her.

Cho nodded. “Doctor said she can go home tomorrow – er – well, go somewhere. How bad was the damage to her apartment?”

Rigsby hated to say it “Total. Four other apartments were gutted and I’m guessing the smoke and water damage will make a lot of the other suites on the first floor unliveable. She’ll have to stay with me.”

Jane had listened to the whole conversation in silence then he said to Rigsby. “How did this happen?”

Rigsby heard and understood the tone of Jane’s inquiry, and he didn’t like it. “Haven’t you been listening? It was a fire.”

Jane waved his cup like a baton toward the room where Grace was sleeping. “It was a fire, sure, but how did it start without either of you noticing that a fire had started? In Grace’s apartment? In the room where you were staying?”

Rigsby felt his blood pressure spike and stepped a bit closer to the man. “Are you asking whether I was derelict in my duty tonight, Jane? Is that what you’re implying?”

Jane pushed his bottom lip up. “I’m not implying a thing, I just don’t understand how neither of you could notice a fire in the apartment when at least one of you was inside the apartment for the duration of the whole incident.”

“That’s because we weren’t both inside the apartment the whole time.”

“Oh.” He nodded but was by no means finished with getting to the bottom of Grace Van Pelt’s puzzling apartment fire. “Where did you go then? Because neither of you met up outside prior to the fire. In fact you didn’t even see Grace until you went back in to look for her and by then, as you said, it was too late to stop it.”

Rigsby wasn’t sure where Jane was going with his inquisition but his own gut reaction was to push back. Hands on hips, Rigsby stepped closer, right up close, close enough so their noses almost touched, and making Jane retreat until his back was against the wall. “What the hell are you getting at, Jane? I never left Grace alone for a moment tonight, so you better shut your mouth before I shut it for you.”

Jane averted tired, red eyes from the sudden dark anger in Rigsby’s, spreading his hands in a gesture of innocent surrender. “Whoa, uh - Lisbon? Little help please?”

“Hey – hey!” Lisbon stepped between her volatile agent and her consultant who didn’t know when to put a sock in it, placing a commanding hand on each of them and forcing them to step back from each other. “What the hell?” She said to them. “Rigsby, back off, right now.”

Jane let out a breath. “Thanks, Lisbon, wow, what’s up with- “

“Jane – shut up!”

Jane mouthed her words to himself looking a little insulted, but her expression told him it would not be a good idea right then to say a word back.

Lisbon said to Rigsby, her tone leaving no room for argument. “Rigsby - go get yourself a coffee. Cho, go with him. And bring me a coffee.”

Jane was suddenly left alone with an angry Lisbon, never a welcome moment.

Spinning around on him - “What the hell are you trying to do, Jane?” She demanded. “What was that?”

Something about the way the fire happened was off, but because he had not been present to witness any of it, it was impossible to tell without being able to speak to Grace. She however was under a doctor’s orders to rest for twelve hours before she could be discharged. “I need to speak to Grace about the fire.” Whatever had occurred, Rigsby had either not seen it, or was protecting Grace – even unknowingly – who may have.

“Absolutely. Tomorrow.” Lisbon searched Jane’s face and saw it, that look in his eye that said he had already made up his mind about something and was just waiting to confirm it. “You think Red John set the fire, don’t you?”

“I know he did.”

Lisbon bit her lip, unsure how to proceed. “You weren’t there, Jane, and setting fires is not even close to how Red John likes to kill.”

“But screwing with me he does like to do. I believe Red John hired someone to watch Rigsby and Grace and at the right moment, slip in and set that fire. It’s not like he hasn’t gotten inside before.”

He meant Bosco and his team. “I know that.” Why not just ask? “How would he do it? How would Red John, or an accomplice, pick just the right moment to do that – enter a locked building, and a locked apartment, set a fire and escape - without being seen by anyone, including Rigsby or Van Pelt?”

“Let me talk to Grace and I’ll know.”

Arrogance of ability did not make right. “No. Not right now, she needs to rest. I mean it, Jane – Van Pelt could have died tonight.”

Jane balanced back and forth from his toes to the heels of his feet. It was a habitual nervous tic and he did it when he was anxious to act. “But she didn’t and I am as glad as all of you that Grace is going to be okay, but this is Red John manipulation, pure and simple. And I will find out how this went down.” He insisted to Lisbon. “Tonight would be better but – fine. Since you want to wait, I can do that. I’ll sit around and do nothing until tomorrow. I’m confident that one more night’s sleep won’t significantly delay that justice stuff you’re always advocating.”

It was a classic Jane sarcasm and guilt slinging, and Lisbon refused to buckle under. “When Cho comes back, you two go home and get some sleep. Rigsby and I’ll stay here and make sure Grace is protected.”

Jane seemed a bit crestfallen that his attempt to play his boss didn’t have its desire effect, and without a word of acknowledgement he wandered over to the confectionary machines, jingling the change in his pocket. Lisbon sat down in a visitor’s chair to wait out the night.

CBI

Cho boiled water for some late night instant soup. He was hungry for something more solid but in the few hours that were left to the night, he did not want to try sleeping on a full stomach. Jane had declined food altogether and Cho sometimes wondered how Jane managed to keep weight on at all. It had to be the snacking he did during the office hours because regular meals and Jane hardly ever met up. Never-the-less, Cho poured him an instant soup, too, and called him to come and get it.

Jane had slipped out of his jacket, shoes, socks and suit vest and was wearing only his dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the top half of the buttons undone. Jane leaned his lower back against the counter and watched Cho pour hot water into the little Styrofoam disposable cups.

To avoid scalding his fingers Cho tried to keep his eyes on what he was doing and not on the sight of Jane in so casual a state, the loosened state of his shirt revealing a beautifully smooth chest and even the sight of his bare feet was enough to spark some arousal.

Before Jane gathered his cup up and moved away from the counter, Cho also caught a glimpse of the terrible burn scar that Red John had left on its perfect surface, below Jane’s left shoulder. Despite the skin grafting to repair the damage, the shape of the scar was still clearly visible; a smiling face, a reminder to Jane each time he got dressed in the morning, or each time he stepped from the shower and caught a view of himself in the mirror that Red John was ever with him. Jane would carry the memory of those terrible few days in his mind as his flesh would carry it also in the form of Red John’s personal signature.

The scar was ugly, but what surrounded it wasn’t; Jane’s beating heart and self determination and love for what was right. Jane’s irksome methods and occasional errors in personal judgement aside, Cho was secretly proud of him. Proud that all of what was humane was still there inside him, going strong. Even if Jane’s goal of revenge, as distasteful as it might seem to many, carried on, Jane’s good life had carried on as well. It had survived Red John each and every time.

And of course there were the other things Cho had grown to appreciate in the man, like his humour and how he sought out the fun in everyday life.

And naturally one of the very first things that had drawn his eye to the blonde former carnie-turned-investigating-consultant was his looks. Simply said - Jane was a very good looking man and as far as Cho was concerned, the presence of the puckered scar did not detract from the rest of Jane’s physical appeal in the slightest. The skin surrounding the scar was to Cho every bit as erotic as it had been before, and the scar’s hated existence on his flesh provided a stark contrast to the silky smoothness of the rest of his body, bringing even more emphasis to the remainder of his unaffected and still beautiful skin.

Cho knew he was not the only one at the CBI offices who found Jane easy on the eyes and every-so-often he would see some woman or man, a clerk, a visiting detective or even someone in upper management, flirting with Patrick by smiling at him longer than would be normal for two people who barely know each other but only work on the same floor, or standing closer to him than was socially acceptable, or while in conversation looking at him more steadily than was polite. And sometimes people just openly stared longingly as he walked by or boiled water for his tea.

Jane however, Cho had also noticed, never once rose to the flattery other than to shyly thank them while making his excuses as to why he had to refuse with ready words of grateful-but-no-I-really-can’t-but-thank-you-anyway-that’s-very-nice-of-you-to-say-yes-have-a-nice-day-now.

Cho sat beside Jane on the couch and ate his soup. Jane had nibbled at his and abandoned it half-way through. Cho dropped the spoon on the coffee table and turned to Jane, pulling him in for a kiss. After a few seconds he let him go, but did not release his arms that were tucked in behind him, under his shirt, next to his warm flesh. “I’ve had this apartment scanned for bugs and cameras and anything else less than one week ago. It’s clean.”

Jane looked back at Cho, taken by surprise by the hungry kiss. Cho loved to see that Jane for once had nothing to say in response and, not wanting to give him time to think of anything, Cho took another deep kiss, then lead a for once non-protesting Jane to the bedroom where Cho undressed them both, crawled beneath the covers and made love to him for the few hours of the night they had left.

If last night was any indication of what was to come in this, their latest hunt for Red John, Cho was determined that Jane would have the memories of these few hours at least to hang onto. Before Jane drifted off to sleep, Cho said it again, in his lover’s almost unconscious ear, just in case Jane had maybe forgotten -

“I love you.”

CBI

Red Matter - and Shatter Part 3

 

CBI  
Red John made promises and then kept them. Red John always meant what he said. Red John had slaughtered two ga y policemen. Jane understood its meaning however much Cho and the others by their silence refuted it. But in reality Red John’s message could not have been lost on anyone. Even love isn’t that blind. It was often by its nature, though, in thick denial.

CBI

“Are you sure about this?” Cho asked, parking the car and dropping the required coins into the meter.

Jane walked to the main entrance of Sutter Memorial Hospital, and Cho caught up with him. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“Seems to me that a fire isn’t a likely Red John move.”

Jane, very much a man with his own view on what Red John would or would not do, was dismissive of any idea contrary to his own theory of the fire. “Terrorizing Grace or any one of us is though. He doesn’t care how he accomplishes that.”

Cho was a man in a difficult position. Trying to be supportive of the man you loved while being honest to your own perhaps contrary views was not an easy balance. In this instance his heart and its influencing affection for Jane had won out, but his basic and trustworthy law enforcement guts said nothing good was going to come of this interview. At least Jane had waited the twelve hours of bed rest the doctor had ordered and Lisbon had fully supported before waking Cho at three AM to make the drive to Sutter Memorial so he could press his personal take of the fire on the poor, bed-ridden Van Pelt.

Jane and Cho approached her room un-noticed by Rigsby who was snoozing in an uncomfortable-looking chair just a few feet outside her door. His head was bobbing and someone had tossed an inadequately sized hospital issue blanket over him. His long legs stuck out the bottom.

Jane put a finger to his lips for silence and slipped into her room as quiet as a kitchen mouse while Cho took a seat next to Rigsby.

“Grace?” Jane had insisted on stopping at a grocery store and picking up a dozen carnations for her, placing them on the bed’s side table where many other cards and gifts sat as yet unlooked at by their sleeping patient. “Grace? Wake up sleepy head.”

After nearly twelve hours of sleep with an unattractive oxygen prong stuck up her nose, Van Pelt stirred, opening her eyes. Expecting to see Rigsby, she was a little startled to instead see Jane leaning over her, his face only a foot from hers. Sitting up - “Hey Jane.”

Jane sat back again in the visitor’s chair. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah. I guess, a little.” She had the feeling this was not a social visit from the mentalist and, embarrassed by her breach of Jane’s buddy-system, was not in the best frame of mind to be grilled by him on that or anything else. “What are you doing here? Where’s Rigsby?”

“Ah, he’s not here right now.” He smiled self-depreciatingly. “Poor substitute - sorry.”

She waved his words away. She was a little irritated that she had woken up to Jane and not Rigsby, but tried to hide it. “S’fine. What’s going on?”

It was unmistakable, the disappointment on her face at seeing him instead of the man who had saved her life but this was important and Jane couldn’t risk waiting for another time, or for when she might be feeling more her best self. Ignoring the tiny line between her brows he said “I need to know something - a few things actually and I need you to tell me the truth. That’s very important.”

Her face shared its dread of the memories with him and he was quick to reassure her. Only dread, he wondered, or was it the sudden frantic need to lie? “This is between you and me – strictly. You have my word on that.”

Grace stared at him, trying to work it out. “Is that your hypnotist voice? I hate your hypnotist voice, Jane; you always lie in that voice.”

“My hypnotist voice this is not, and if it was you would already be hypnotized and not recognise it as my hypnotist voice, so don’t worry.”

At her hesitation, he resorted to a word he didn’t use much. “Please? It’s very crucial that I find out how that fire started. I need to know exactly what you did and saw – everything you can remember starting with your decision to go out to dinner. Everything. Do you think you can do that for me please?”

At least he was being polite. “I guess so.”

“You decided to go out to dinner – where?”

“To Daily’s Family Restaurant – I go there all the time.”

“Which one of you left your apartment first?”

“I did. I waited for Rigsby in the hall outside my place and then out on the step. He was slow - primping in the bathroom I guess and I got tired of waiting for him.” She had a sudden flash of guilt over it. “I-I guess I needed some air.”

Jane understood, reading the changes emotions on her face like rapid changes in the weather. “You didn’t wait in the car?”

“Why would I wait in the car? The restaurant is one block away.”

“Are you sure you only waited on the step? You didn’t maybe decide that you needed some exercise too?”

As she feared Jane saw through her half truth. “Yes, okay? Yes, I broke the damn buddy system. I decided to meet him there and walked about half the distance to Daily’s. There were people on the street, I was in no danger.”

“So you spoke to Rigsby before you left?”

“Uh, well, no, not exactly, I went back inside and shouted at him to meet me there and to hurry his – to hurry.”

“But you came back.”

“I tried calling him on my home phone and then on his cell, there was no answer so I got worried and came back, that’s when I noticed the smoke.”

“You didn’t see him?”

“Not at first but the room was already on fire, I checked the closet to make sure he wasn’t in there and that’s when I sort of got caught between the door and the fire. Rigsby saved me.”

“I’m glad he was there to do that.” Jane searched her eyes and Van Pelt squirmed.

“What?” she asked.

“You didn’t leave a note, did you? No, I didn’t think so.”

“What note?”

She was looking anxious now. “Not important, never mind. Did you try and put out the fire?”

“Of course but I just made it worse.”

“A blanket – the closest one - you threw it over the flames but instead of stopping it the fire got worse.”

“Yes.”

“Probably accelerant.”

For the first time Van Pelt looked a little afraid. “You think someone doused my quilt with something?”

“Absolutely.”

“But how would they get in inside the building ahead of time to do that? And into my apartment?”

“Ahead of time just means a few seconds or a few minutes. I estimate that Red John or his newest accomplice entered the building almost certainly seconds after both you and Rigsby left. It takes seconds to pick a lock if you know what you’re doing and your building is old, the apartment locks are in the knob - there are no dead-bolts. You were walking to the restaurant alone and Rigsby...Rigsby he sent to look for you out back at your car. The note that was left on your apartment door, the one you failed to notice because you were naturally too occupied with the smoke coming from your second bedroom, was most certainly written by the person who set the fire, and that person was Red John or his accomplice. Did you happen to notice what was burning by the way?”

Van Pelt’s head was spinning. The accident, the fire, the terrible fear that she had been dreaming about all night had just been turned upside down and inside-out by Jane, sitting there as calmly as you please, and each separate thing in every moment she had experienced the previous night did a flip-flop in her mind. She had already given it a preliminary shove to the back alley of her thoughts, to the murky passages of the surreal – a thing to be grieved over but best forgotten. Now it was back to life and its blackened presence even more terrible.

“I think it was a stuffed animal.” She whispered. “You think Red John was trying to kill me o-or Rigsby last night?”

“No. He wouldn’t try. If that was the case, you’d be dead. No, he was attempting to terrify.”

“Well, he succeeded.” She said. A tremble started in her limbs that Red John might have actually targeted her or Rigsby. “Are you sure about this?”

“In every possible way, yes.”

There was a knock on the door. A man entered neither Jane nor Van Pelt recognised, followed by Cho. “Excuse me, Misses Van Pelt?”

Jane stood and spoke to him without taking his eyes off Grace. “Agent Van Pelt.” Jane corrected him, and then asked “I just have three more questions.” Jane announced to them but then dropped his voice for Grace alone. “The object that was burning, did you recognise it?”

“I think it was maybe...a tiger.”

“Ah, yes, I remember you collect “stuffies”. And when you were outside the first time, did you see anyone else on the sidewalk or the step? Other tenants...?”

“Just the building manager and his friend I guess.”

“They both entered.” Jane recited as though he had been there. “The manager smiled at you as they passed, you’ve probably known him for years but don’t remember him ever having a friend in. But the manager, you know him, he’s fixed your sink and sweeps the stairs, he looked at you and he went through the door first though – correct? His friend followed him, didn’t he, and you did not see his face clearly at all. That’s so, isn’t it?”

“Um, I think that’s the way it happened.”

Jane nodded, satisfied. “Thank you Grace.” Then he whispered to her, jerking his head in the direction of the waiting stranger “Most likely the FD investigator. He’ll try and convince you that it was all a tragic accident – don’t let him.” Jane gave her a thin smile of reassurance and turned to leave. Cho did not follow, unwilling to leave Van Pelt alone in the room with someone they didn’t know.

CBI

Van Pelt was at work the day after her release with Rigsby at her side. In between the hospital and CBI Rigsby had taken her shopping for a few clothes to tie her over until she had more free time to replace her wardrobe.

Lisbon noticed the neat black pantsuit with approval. Occasionally Van Pelt’s clothing choices for work were in her opinion too effeminate. The pantsuit however accentuated her coloring and her height. “Nice.” Lisbon commented as she approached her desk.

“Thanks.” Van Pelt took a compliment well but the brief smile never made it to her eyes.

“Listen, if there’s anything the Bureau can do, let me know, okay?”

“I will. All my stuff was insured though.” She said switching on her computer screen, anxious to get some work done and put the whole horrible thing behind her. “The only things I regret losing were the family photos - was anyone else hurt?” She felt terrible that she had not thought to even inquire until now.

“No one died. One person got burned. It was mostly the building that got hurt.”

Breathing a sigh of relief “Well, that’s something at least.”

“You have your debriefing with the Sac’ Fire Marshall later, okay? So have lunch in today.”

“Sure boss.” Van Pelt waited for Lisbon to wander over to where Jane was lounging on his sofa before letting herself sweat over that upcoming interview. Jane insisted Red John had started the fire, but how could she present such a theory in her statement? She decided that the best thing to do is simply answer his questions to the best of her ability and as honestly as she could, and leave the rest up to fate or...whoever.

CBI

Jane was waiting for her at her desk when Van Pelt returned and before he had a chance to even open his mouth she announced “It was deemed an accident, Jane.”

She took her seat and tried not to look at the betrayal on Jane’s face.

Jane was calm but his voice was not. It had that sharp intensity that said he could not accept what he had been told without argument. “This was no accident Grace. Red John was –“

She did not have the energy or even the will to deal with it right then. “I KNOW what you think.” She said to him, cutting off his protests. “But I think...I think I left some incense burning. I do that all the time, I light incense all over my apartment. This time I-I think I forgot about it.”

“You think you forgot?” Jane repeated it as a question. “So you don’t remember even lighting the incense? He’s got you convinced that it’s your memory that’s at fault, Grace. There’s nothing wrong with your memory. You don’t remember lighting the incense because you didn’t light any. Did you also forget writing the note?”

Van Pelt turned her face to her computer, her heart pounding. It was stupid of her to think that Jane would not just let her be. “No, but he said in his experience that my memory can’t be trusted right now, and I think he’s right about that. Anyway, that’s what it will say in my statement.” She looked at him once more, pleading with him to understand. “I just...I just don’t know Jane. I’ve lost everything, okay. I feel sick to my stomach over this whole thing and I-I just d-don’t know.”

Jane knew he was right. As wrong as Grace was now convinced that she was, that’s how strongly Jane was convinced that she wasn’t. “Can’t trust yourself you mean?”

That hurt and it was enough to push her beyond her present ability to keep decorum. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes and pushed her chair back, standing and walked swiftly away from Jane toward the Lady’s room, a hand cupped over her mouth, trying to keep any noises from emerging until she could find a private place to vent the stress.

Rigsby had chosen that moment to walk in and she pushed passed him without an explanation. His eyes however did not miss the few tears that had escaped and who it was that had probably caused them. He walked to Van Pelt’s desk where Jane was still seated and, standing over him with his full and threatening six-one, demanded. “What did you say to her?”

“Morning, Rigsby. I’m fine as well. It was a private conversation.” Jane tried to stand and return to his sofa but Rigsby was having none of it.

“I think we need to talk, Jane.”

Jane did stand this time, edging away and back toward his sofa. “Well, I think we don’t. Red John may have killed Grace. Why is everyone so willing to dismiss that?”

“This wasn’t Red John and even if it was, what right do you have to torment her?”

“I’m not tormenting, I’m trying to protect her.” Jane continued to back up. He was not trained in self defence but knew Rigsby packed a powerful fist. “You for one should appreciate that.”

“By making her cry?? Some “protection”.” To halt his escape Rigsby reached out and gathered one of Jane’s lapels into his fist. “What the hell makes you think you can hurt people whenever it suits you? After what she’s been through...” Rigsby was fed to the gills with frustration and anger over Jane’s comments that night in the hospital and fearful over what had almost happened to Grace and just plain fed-up with Jane and his theories in general. “Stay the hell away from her Jane.” He shouted. “Or you’ll regret it.”

From the hallway heads turned and Lisbon’s office door opened. Cho was returning to his desk from the kitchen and had arrived in time to see Rigsby ready to knock Jane to the floor.

“Hey!” He was there is a flat second, prying Rigsby’s hand from Jane’s jacket. Rigsby was strong and fast but Cho could still best him when it came to sheer brute strength.

Rigsby let go in disgust, turning to Cho, his voice still over the top. “Of course you would defend him. What? Just because you’re sleeping with him – now he can do no wrong??”

When he’d finished shouting out those words, which had made it all the way down the hall he was sure to Lisbon’s office and everyone else’s, in the silence that followed Rigsby had a few burning seconds to regret them. Rigsby suddenly realised what it was he had said and to who, and about who, and it was wrong. It was all wrong and a thing to be sorry about, only it was too late to take them back.

In those few seconds of regret Lisbon had arrived on scene, her mouth hanging open at not only the shouting between her agents, but at the loud and clear news that everyone in and outside the office now knew and would no doubt gossip about to anyone who would listen from that moment until the end of time. Cho and Jane were in a relationship, against CBI rules, and now it was out in the open and what the hell should she do about it?

Lisbon had no idea but to give herself a minute to think about it she decided to first deal with Rigsby’s very public breach of conduct. She looked at him, trying to get her temper under control. “In my office, right now.” Then she glanced between Cho and Jane. “You two don’t go anywhere because you’re next.”

 

CBI

Rigsby she dealt with swiftly. “You assaulted and threatened a fellow agent.”

Sheepishly - “Consultant.” Rigsby corrected.

“Do you see me laughing, Wayne? You think this is funny? He’s on my team, therefore Jane’s my agent or consultant or whatever you want to call him. The fact is you have now forced my hand. Now I have to do something about you. Do you find that funny, too?”

He had the grace to look ashamed. “No ma’am.”

“I know Jane can be a trial...” She stopped. They all knew that and she had counselled each member before about it. All those lectures and soothing of egos she had basically tossed in the bucket labelled Put Up With Him or, its twin, Get Over It. Rigsby knew all the excuses for Jane and why they were made in the first place.

It wasn’t Jane or Rigsby or the job, it was the case itself in general, and more specifically Jane’s buddy system which had worn away her agent’s carefully preserved exteriors in which they clothed themselves every day at the office, leaving behind the naked, raw people underneath who had enjoyed no privacy or time away from each other for over a week. Everyone’s nerves were now frayed to the breaking point. Rigsby was about to snap in two and Van Pelt – she had already fallen apart from the buddy-system and the damn fire. She, Teresa Lisbon, was the agent in charge and her own team was crumbling around her.

Lisbon decided to keep it as simple as possible. “You don’t have to apologise to Jane unless you want to, because frankly I get it – sometimes he’s a pain in the ass. But you were the one who assaulted him. Grabbing a colleague and uttering threats is assault. So I’m giving you a two day vacation with pay, Rigsby, and there’ll be a permanent note on your record. Go home.”

“What about Grace? She’s-?”

“Never mind. This buddy system thing is done with. If we continue with this and all end up dead, it’ll be because we killed each other.”

Rigsby nodded, standing. “Sorry boss.” He said, feeling rather low in her eyes at that moment.

“Just go home and take it easy. I’ll make sure you’re kept up-to-date on the case – if it still is our case by the end of today.” She had no idea what to say to Bertram who before long was sure to get wind of the entire smelly mess.

Cho and Jane entered and sat down.

She opened the floor to either of them. “You wanna’ try taking it from the top?”

It was Jane who answered. “I’m suddenly not allowed to talk to Grace? Rigsby should mind his own busi-“

“I mean the other thing.” She said, stomping on Jane’s attempt to deflect. She decided to ask Cho, a man given to honesty whenever he spoke. “You two are in a relationship now? Is that right? A sexual relationship?”

Cho glanced over to Jane who was sitting silently, biting his lip and not looking at either of them. Jane was worried. They’d had a breakthrough of sorts two nights ago. Jane in his bed willingly, relaxed and content to be there - happy. For hours allowing Cho to do with him as he pleased and responding like a man starved for it.

And Cho pleased. He pleased very, very much. Cho could not bear to let that go just yet. “We’re in a relationship of sorts, yes, but not sexual.” He lied.

“Not sexual? Then why did Rigsby...?”

“Because he spoke in anger and without knowing the truth. Jane and I have been spending what could be called some romantic time together but we’ve kept it subdued and very private.” Then he dropped his best play which was no lie at all. “Like you indicated we should.”

It was true, she had said something to the effect of be careful or keep it out of the office. Lisbon honestly couldn’t recall exactly how she’d phrased it but she had said words of some nature, and it appeared Cho had taken it to heart. Lisbon also had no doubt that Cho was the ringleader in his and Jane’s little romance. Jane she pegged as too reserved or eternally distracted to have taken the first step, however far that first step had reached.

Lisbon suspected it had left a bigger print than what Cho was indicating, but then if she knew the precise measurements what should she do about it? Truthfully she didn’t want to do anything about it, not right now. If Jane was happy - and she hoped to god that yes he was happy – then why should she or anyone put a stop to that? Didn’t Jane deserve a little affection now and then like everyone else? Even with Red John dangling over him like a sword on a gossamer thread?

The CBI rules might be in place for very good reasons, but those rules had never imagined someone like Jane trying to exist within their confines. And if she went hard-ass and insisted they not see each other at all, then one or the other might be likely to leave the CBI so the relationship could continue, and she would lose an excellent agent in Cho or a top-notch investigating consultant like Jane. Either way the team would be split up and that was the last thing Lisbon wanted. The last thing.

Plus she considered them both her friends.

Lisbon was also well aware that as normal operations in agents or work or even life went, Jane stood apart. Compromises had to be made for so unusual a person in so unusual a life course. She didn’t let herself think it often but Lisbon was convinced that Jane was far more vulnerable to life’s hard corners than he let on, or that anyone imagined he was. So many of them had already left their unique bruises and realistically more were sure to come. Because of that he needed protection. So as far as it depended on her, and because she cared about him, she would bend the rules as best she could, and allow him a place to be.

“In a relationship but not in a relationship huh? Cho, those words you mentioned that I supposedly said? - don’t make me regret them.” Whatever they were. “Fine, we’ll go with that for now, but be damn sure to keep whatever it is-but-isn’t on the way down-low.” Lisbon looked at each of them for a few seconds to ensure the words she was saying now had cemented in their minds, and that she wasn’t fucking kidding.

And then she rested softer eyes on Jane. Another hard corner was honing in. “I’m discontinuing the buddy-system, Jane. The Marshall determined the fire to be an accident and after just over a week we’re all ready to kill each other. It was a good idea but for the sake of our sanity I’m ending it here and now.”

Jane closed his eyes, shaking his head. “Don’t –don’t do that, Lisbon, please? That fire was no accident. It was Red John or his accomplice. I’m certain of it. I know it.”

“Well, the Fire Marshall thinks differently, and so does Van Pelt by the way. I’ve got her report right here on my desk.”

“That report is a falsehood and she was told what to remember. I’ve performed the same trick on innocents myself many times. Grace was coached to remember to think that she forgot.”

Lisbon tried and failed to get her head around that. “The Fire Marshall has no reason to dupe anyone, Jane, just forget it. It’s done. The case of the mysterious fire is closed. Tomorrow is Saturday, Jane, go do something fun. Get your mind off things.” Lisbon didn’t seriously believe he would take her advice, but it hurt no one to hope.

“Did he check for an accelerant on the blanket?”

“No, and do you know why? Because the fire was an accident. We’re done here. Get out of my office and go back to work - both of you.”

Cho stood to leave but Jane however, was not quite done. “I don’t blame you for not believing me, Lisbon. I know it’s just easier.”

“Out. Now.”

Lisbon put her head down and pretended to read until both men had left her office. She sighed heavily, hoping she had not just made a big mistake. Now she had to go and try to quell an in-agency shit-storm by feeding the same bullshit to Bertram that Cho had just fed her. “In a relationship but not?” She muttered to herself. “Yeah, right.”

CBI

Jane rifled through the box marked Case Items File #2547 - Red John and found what he was looking for. It was tucked inside a protective baggie in its original envelope – the hand written letter Red John had sent him many months back. Jane knew it was rare for him to be using it but he was sitting at his desk to think and also to pile up the many documents he would need to return to the box-file and in their proper order from oldest information to newest, so it appeared that nothing was missing. That was the only loose end in his plan – he would not be able to return that letter to the box. He had to take it with him.

There were hundreds of documents accumulated over a decade and a half on the hunt for Red John. Only eight of those years had seen him directly or indirectly involved in that hunt but it already felt like half a lifetime. Having a loving wife and a wonderful daughter – being a family man - seemed like a pleasant daydream he’d experienced long ago.

Jane tucked the letter into the inside pocket of his jacket, reminding himself that it had taken some nineteen years to catch each the Green River Killer and the Pig Farm Killer - two men, interestingly enough, born within eight months of each other and both arrested for multiple murders with three months of each other - so fifteen years wasn’t unheard of. He sent the Red John case-box back down to Storage, still marked “Pending”. He had every scrap of paper in it memorized anyway, so there was no need to keep it nearby anyway.

The case of their dead policemen lovers had ground to a halt. All their witnesses had proved useless, or dead, and there was no evidence linking them to anyone except the evidence of their own eyes – the smiling face drawn in blood above the bed where the victims were found, throats slashed and bodies posed in an embrace, and the photos of the CBI team Red John had left behind to remind them they were very much on his mind.

Jane gathered his wallet from his desk and left the office without saying a word to anyone. He drove across the city to his empty apartment, not feeling right about imposing himself on Cho’s hospitality any longer now that Lisbon had dismissed his buddy-system, ignoring the truth that had Van Pelt made the decision to stick to the system and not venture out on her own, nothing amiss would have transpired that night; not the fire, not her hospital stay and not the fear and confusion that was now nestled in her eyes.

Jane boiled the kettle and made a nerve soothing cup of herb tea while waiting for an idea that had been tickling his thoughts over the previous several hours began to form a more solid shape. He sat down and read over the letter Red John had sent him. This he had memorized as well but it was good to take a minute to decide how to proceed. Red John was not done with the team. Backing off was not his style, threatening and then not following through was not his method.

Unconsciously the fingers of his right hand rose to touch the scar on his left shoulder. The graft was less sensitive than the surrounding skin, almost numb to his touch, and its texture was uneven and rough under his fingertips.

Red John made promises and then kept them. Red John always meant what he said. Red John had slaughtered two gay policemen. Jane understood its meaning however much Cho and the others by their silence refuted it. But in reality Red John’s message could not have been lost on anyone. Even love isn’t that blind. It was often by its nature, though, in thick denial.

Jane would hunt Red John down himself. Enough with the CBI and chasing after bad guys, he would bring Red John, not to so-called justice as Lisbon and the others were always insisting was the proper way, but to death. Kill Red John and make some real justice for a change.

But first he would disappear in such a way that the CBI would not try to find him, taking no clothes or personals of any sort except what he was wearing. He had money hidden away in deposit boxes under pseudonyms that no one knew about and had added some of the proceeds from the sale of his big house to them. His wallet and car keys would be left on the kitchen counter as though that’s where he always left them when he got home, near the stove and next to where his tea kettle sat in its electric cubby, though the kettle itself would be on the floor, its water splashed and mixing with the blood that would next join it.

Of course the Citroen they would find out parked in front of the building in his usual spot. He would leave his cell phone on the floor. Best to toss it over there by the garbage can that sat by the small pantry. His jacket would still be draped innocently over the kitchen stool, undisturbed but for the tiny drops of his blood on the fabric. And he would have bandages ready ahead of time to be used once he was well away and the trail for the team had gone cold.

All this would occur tomorrow just on midnight and then, just after midnight, he would walk several blocks to the bus stop, stopping off in an alley to shed the vest part of his suit in a restaurant dumpster full of the greasy refuse of the food industry. The vest was too recognizable a part of his daily ensemble to risk wearing it after that.

Then he would take the bus to a random bar, one that was quiet and dark and where no one was likely to notice him. He would call a cab from a wall phone and travel to Oakland first, then locate a car for sale in a local paper, buying it with cash. He still had the weapon Max Winters had gifted to him and would purchase the required bullets and take the lessons on its use until he was good enough that he when the time came, he would not miss.

If all went well, he would eventually meet up with Red John in San Jose or maybe San Francisco, depending on what answer Red John sent him via the personals.

Jane would choose one newspaper in which to communicate with Red John, one the CBI had never had any reason to monitor, and use wording he knew Red John would understand but no one else was likely to.

Disappearing was the easy part. Choreographing it would be more difficult but he was absolutely up to it. He had examined enough crime scenes to know not to leave behind any more than a single clue (in this instance his blood), and how to set the scene in a way most subtle so it did not appear to be a set scene. Red John was almost always clean and perfectly efficient in his crimes, and he would be as well. It occurred to Jane the irony of his using Red John to further his end of catching and killing Red John. Come Monday morning, they would believe he was once more in Red John’s hands and, not long after, Jane hoped to have Red John in his.

Until then Red John would be his shield, and the black screen cast between their eyes and him. That would be the hard part.

Yesterday upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there... It’s easier to hide behind someone who is never there.

Red John would welcome the challenge. Styles had said it, hadn’t he? And Jane had experienced it himself during his captivity. In his sick and twisted way, Red John was in love with him so Jane would encourage their dangerous game once more, this time full throttle. But first he needed to be reassured that his colleagues would be safe.

Next to the kitchen counter inside his suit that was draped over a tall stool, his cellular rang and Jane stared at it for a moment, and then got up to fish it out of his jacket. He opened it to check the caller ID but did not answer.

It was Cho. Some would think Providence was telling him to abandon his chosen path, but Jane did not believe in Providence, he believed in will and its execution.

Jane waited until the call went to his voice mail then, turning his phone off, returned to the table and spread out both pages of Red John’s letter so he could see them easily. Snapping on surgical gloves, he first paused for a moment to reassure his thoughts and conscience on the matter that this was the best way for all concerned and then, taking up fresh pen and paper, began to write.

 

He would miss Cho the most.

CBI  
Red Matter - and Shatter Part 4

C-B-I  
CBI

“Tiger – And what shoulder and what art can twist the sinews of thy heart? In terrors I am clasp’d and cannot ignore the fire. I burn for thy Immortal grasp. I am thy Gold - on wings to Humility I dare aspire.”

CBI

 

Lisbon was the first to see the blood. “Oh my god.” She froze for only a few seconds, her training as a law enforcement agent kicked in her first response instinct far sooner than any ordinary citizens’ would have.

“Call the CSI’s – get them down here now.” She barked to Rigsby who had followed her through the entry door.

Rigsby couldn’t yet see what had set Lisbon off but without a second thought he punched nine-one-one from Jane’s home line and fired off instructions to the Emergency Operator. He dialled Cho next. He also rang up Van Pelt but she didn’t answer.

Rigsby walked to the kitchen where Lisbon already was already standing just inside the arched entryway unmoving and staring at the floor. He felt weird being in Jane’s apartment without him present, not that Rigsby had ever been here before but still it felt weird, as though he was snooping. Jane hating anyone snooping into his personal life though Rigsby wondered if Cho had been here with Jane at any point.

Lisbon stood still, not certain where to step or not to step, neither sure that what she was seeing wasn’t some elaborate joke or the real deal. She sniffed the air. A metallic odour hung in the air, a familiar perfume encountered at dozens of crime scenes where a human had died. It was a smell, however faint, that never really left your nostrils. This blood, she decided, was real and she rubbed the spare key to Jane’s apartment that was still clasped between her fingers. She had kept it on her key chain all these years. Jane had a copy made for her the second day of his employment. “Just in case.” He had said.

“In case what?”

“If I knew that I wouldn’t need to give it to you.”

Rigsby, once his foot passed the threshold between Jane’s living room and the small modern kitchen in his one bedroom apartment, took a few seconds to look at the blood stains, and they stopped him in his tracks. Crime scenes and the gore that often went with them usually didn’t bother him too much, but this was different. This was a friend and colleague’s home and the blood had to be Jane’s.

Lisbon barked. "Check the rest of the rooms." Rigsby spent the next few minutes searching the apartment with his gun drawn, checking each dark corner or closet one by one and shouting "Clear!" when each proved to be empty of suspects.

When he returned to his boss, Lisbon glanced at her watch. For fifteen hours they had received no answer from either Jane’s home phone or his cellular. With shaking fingers, Lisbon dialled Jane’s cellular number again from her own phone but it was a Hail-Mary and she knew it.

“Come on, Jane, where are you?” She said under her breath. Then they both heard the familiar trilling. Following its sound a few feet across the floor Lisbon found it lying on its side between the black garbage can and the refrigerator. It had first escaped her eye because of its sleek black cover that blended in with the garbage can’s wide base.

With a wave of cold fear, Lisbon picked it up. The phone wasn’t turned on save for the auto-tone that told its owner someone was trying to call. It was a new feature and ran on a separate battery. Lisbon dropped it on the counter beside Jane’s wallet. She didn’t bother with gloves, and picked up the wallet, fingering through its contents. As far as she could tell, Jane’s credit cards, cash and his ID were present and accounted for. Whoever had taken him, the reason was clearly not robbery. Neither had the unsub bothered with clean-up. She whispered “Because he knows we know him.”

“What?’ Rigsby asked, overhearing. He was making a visual inspection of the whole kitchen, including opening the pantry door, while making certain not to step in any of the blood spatters on the tile or place his hands anywhere he didn’t need to.

“Nothing.” She said then realised this was Rigsby, and he was probably thinking the same thing she was. “Red John.” She said. “This was Red John.”

He nodded. “Yup.” Blood - Red John’s favourite colour.

Other than the human body fluid, the place looked barely lived in, and other than some unpacked cardboard boxes, a few sticks of furniture and a kettle on the stove, it looked not much different than if someone had just recently vacated.

Rigsby had figured once Jane’s house had sold and he’d finally rented a place of his own, that he would have spent more time sleeping in it, but there were days he still curled up on the couch at work or in the attic where someone had taken pity on him and dragged in a thin sponge mattress that had seen better days. Grace had added a blanket from her car and he had no idea where the pillow had come from, unless Jane had brought it in himself. It was regularly frowned upon by management, Jane using the offices as his personal dorm, but the blonde’s chronic insomnia was well known and because upper management viewed Jane as a great asset to the CBI homicide team, they turned a blind eye.

“Local PD’ll be here any minute.” Rigsby explained unnecessarily. “And Cho’s on his way. He sounded freaked.”

“How freaked?”

“Like Cho freaked. Clipped, sober you know - intense.”

“Okay.”

Rigsby had hoped she’d have more to say. “What do we do abou-?”

“I don’t know.” She said, not meaning to snap at him. “We can’t hide this from Cho.” As much as she’d like to in order to spare him the agony she was feeling. “He’s a professional.” Then she added “You realise because Jane’s a member of our team, Bertram will likely hand it over to Missing Persons.” Of course he knew that was a possibility, but she needed to talk, to say anything however irrelevant. Filling the room with words brought a life of sorts back into it. It was also a good way of distracting herself, because at that moment she wanted to scream or maybe cry and neither was a luxury she could presently afford.

Rigsby didn’t like the Missing Persons Unit idea one bit. Jane and he perhaps hadn’t got along lately, but he never wished this on him. Not this. Never his own blood spilled in his own kitchen. “We know who did this – Missing Persons won’t understand this case – Red John is ours – this is way out of their league.”

“I’ll make the argument to Bertram but...” Lisbon swallowed hard. What they could only assume was that Red John had spilled the blood, and that it was Jane’s blood on the counter and the jacket that lay over the stool sitting up against it. There were blood streaks on the wall and on the door-frame as though Jane had tried and failed to prevent someone dragging him from the room; Jane’s finger prints stood out against the white of the wall paint, an unintentional and stark message left at the scene telling them he had fought for his life. The sight of them made her so afraid for him that the cold fear in her belly suddenly turned into waves of nausea.

Rigsby remarked aloud “I wish to hell Cho and I had taught him some self defence.”

Lisbon tried to quell the guilt welling up in her that she had dismissed Jane’s warnings about cancelling his buddy-system. He had told her it was a bad decision and she had not listened. Her arguments now, standing in her friend’s apartment with the blood, his home now a crime scene, seemed hollow and short sighted. Red John had been in this room, entering un-noticed as he always did and catching Jane off guard. Who doesn’t feel safe in their own home behind the relative safety of their own locks? Even Patrick Jane could succumb to normal human perceptions from time to time, the perception that locks kept out the bad guys.

Lisbon’s eyes followed the blood spatter and streaks from the counter, to the chair, to the floor and finally to the wall. It was her friend’s blood, her friend who had struggled but was unable to save himself. Now Red John had him and Lisbon knew exactly and in every way what that meant. Personal knowledge should have taught her something but somehow it hadn’t and then this minute had arrived to shove her face in the red stuff until her pores dripped.

She hadn’t considered that Jane might be taken again, or seriously enough pondered whether maybe Jane was right about the fire, despite what the Fire Marshall’s report insisted, and she felt soul sick over that grave error.

Her stomach contents suddenly demanded action and Lisbon dashed down the short hall to the toilet hoping she wasn’t about to destroy evidence by heaving up a pint or so of her own body fluids. Lisbon emptied her guts into the toilet bowl, flushed, wiped her mouth with a tissue from a box on the back of the tank and, on shaky legs, returned to the kitchen where she heard Rigsby speaking to Cho.

Cho looked at her and asked a question she knew he knew she didn’t really have to answer. “Red John?”

Her stomach still turning, Lisbon offered a mute nod. She thought the least she could do was apologise. “I’m sorry.”

“We can start with the list.” Cho said.

Lisbon knew what he meant; the list of former circus people – the carnies. Yes, Cho would do that. Not cry or wring his hands but decided and act. Small wonder he had done so well during his stint as team leader. Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt had complied about fifty possible suspects – suspects even Jane had not considered; people from his far away past. From the days before his marriage, before his daughter, and before Red John became Jane’s personal household word.

Lisbon hated to dampen their enthusiasm. “We have no idea if this case is even going to be ours. You know what happened when Rachel Bowman kidnapped Jane? Bertram gave it to them.”

“So? We worked it anyway.”

Lisbon nodded, agreeing. “Yes, but Bertram made it clear if he caught us doing that a second time, the repercussions- “

“Lisbon, this is Red John we’re talking about. He has Jane for the third time. What if this time he really plans on killing him?”

“We can speculate all we want, but there’s no way to know until - ”

“Until he turns up dead?” Cho asked. His lips said it but his heart fought against the idea, refusing to yield to it just yet. One could not deny facts, however. “The two police officers? Gay police officers dead in each other’s arms? The meaning of that can’t possibly have escaped you.”

“Of course not.” She said softly. Two male lovers dying together under the hand of Red John’s knife, of course she had considered the message behind it. “If Red John wanted to kill you or Jane – or both at the same time – why would he take just Jane?”

“I dunno’. Because he’s insane.” Cho insisted.

Lisbon looked at him sadly. “Jane would say that’s too easy an answer.”

“Jane isn‘t here.” Cho looked at Rigsby. “I vote we handle this one ourselves.”

Lisbon had to shut this down right now. “When this becomes a democracy, I’ll consider it. Look – you’re preaching to the choir here. I don’t like the idea any better than you do, but I’ll talk to Bertram and we’ll just have to see what happens.”

CBI

He chose a hotel rather than a motel, wanting to be surrounded by people, even if there were on the other sides of the walls. It felt a trifle more secure than a ground level place, but he knew it wasn’t really. Locks were invented to keep out the honest and the law-abiding.

He’d order room service and not leave the hotel until Red John made contact. Jane was certain he would and the first communiqué to Red John sat in its envelope on the desk by the double bed, ready to be mailed to the Chronicle.

“Dear Tiger,” It read, “Remember your promise and the smile you left for me? I want to meet again. Ever Yours.”

Red John claimed to have eyes everywhere, and now it was time to see whether that was true or not. If Red John had been watching him at all he would know that Jane was no longer in Sacramento, and perhaps guess this move and keep an eye on the circulations. Red John had hunted in the San Francisco area before, and he was a patient killer. He would not disappoint.

Two days passed. The third day Jane ordered his standard light breakfast of toast, jam and tea - plus the morning paper. Letting the untouched toast cool on the plate, he read through the personals one by one. Nothing. But it had only been three days. It would come tomorrow. He was sure of it. The tea had gone cold and the toast was thrown out.

CBI

“Okay, the case is ours.” Lisbon was glad to announce to her team, but she underlined it. “For now.” She leaned against the front of Jane’s desk and spoke quietly. “That could change at any time if Bertram thinks any one of us starts going off the deep end.” Then she looked at Cho. “I didn’t tell him about you and Jane because as far as I’m concerned right now it’s none of his business, but it does mean, Cho, that there’s potential for you to get too close to this case.”

Somehow this all felt familiar. “What if – does anyone here think...I mean what if Jane is dead already?”

Cho instantly dismissed the thought. This was no place to give way to feelings of rage, frustration, and loss. “He isn’t. And I’m already close, boss. Jane and I...” Cho paused, then decided to complete his thought and fuck the consequences. They were already up to their collective ass in consequences, what was one more? “I love him. I’m working the case, with or without Bertram’s approval and if I have to - without my badge.”

Van Pelt looked at him sadly, her heart leaping with the unexpected news, and at the same time it went out to him. “I’m sorry, Cho, I-I had no idea.” She wondered how she could have missed the signs, but she hadn’t noticed any looks or physical touching between them, not even once. Then Cho, a man always careful in his moment to moment actions, would have probably been extra cautious about that. A sexual relationship with a colleague, particularly one on your own team, was against the rules, a hard reality that Van Pelt well understood. She also knew how swiftly your heart can become wrapped up in a co-worker if you let it and how soul grinding it is when you have to let go.

How much different was Cho to her? Would he choose the job over Jane? She didn’t know Cho well enough to guess, but Jane was an easier thought because for him it wasn’t about the job at all. He would choose his revenge against Red John over anything or anyone. And that part of it was sad because Jane’s grief and loneliness was transparent, and she believed Cho to be a good man who would treat him right, if only Jane would take a moment to consider his future instead of his past that had him in its cruel grip. Jane was like a fox in a steel trap trying to escape by chewing off its own leg and snapping at the hands reaching out to help.

Lisbon took a deep breath. “Cho, let’s work this right so you won’t have to. Okay, where are we on that list? Let’s figure this out.”

CBI

The fourth day after his first letter, Jane received an answer. It was to the point. “Golden boy – go home. He who framed thy heart.”

Jane frowned at the short instructions, and then composed a second letter, longer this time. “Tiger: I cannot go home. We must meet . What dread hand and what dread feet? Golden Boy.”

The second Red John letter was succinct as well, but this time free from the framework of poetry: “Golden Child – For certain something might die, but I am not ready to add to your decorations. Go home and my art remains unveiled.”

Jane crumpled the newspaper page up and flung it across the room. Fuck Red John and his theatrical bullshit. Jane thought for a few minutes and wrote a third letter to the personals.

“Tiger – And what shoulder and what art can twist the sinews of thy heart? In terrors I am clasp’d and cannot ignore the fire. I burn for thy Immortal grasp. I am thy Gold - on wings to Humility dare I aspire.”

Red John’s third response came two days later in the morning edition and instead of instructions to leave San Francisco his poetic furnace had been ignited and was smouldering. “Golden One of my burning eyes. On what wings dare you aspire? Or hand dare seize the fire? Heron’s Head on seven in seven sleeps and we shall see into distant deeps.”

Seven days? Jane hated to think of waiting around for seven days but he had no choice. At this point in his little ruse, Red John held the power, but that would change. Jane sipped tea, and wandered into the lobby where free computer use and internet was available. He sat for a while, checking the Sacramento periodical online editions for any news of the CBI, just to be sure everything there was still okay.

If Red John had him, Jane was certain the killer would leave his colleagues at the CBI alone. Jane wasn’t after all, in Sacramento anymore. Surely Red John would not be able to resist the opportunity to teach Jane a lesson in person about his continuing defiance? Jane had refused to go home as instructed and Red John would for certain answer him now. His ego could not let it pass. And Jane had written the letters in such a way as to appeal to Red John’s ego. Red John was a narcissist and Jane hoped that in this case, flattery would get him everywhere.

Their reunion was a week away but Jane was patient too.

CBI

Lisbon parked her SUV beside the aging trailer of Jane’s old friend. Here were circus folk and some of them had been around to watch Jane grow up, see him leave the fold, been happy for him when he’d married and started a family, and then watch him lose it all again on the six o’clock news.

Here, Lisbon hoped, were people who were still his friends, some of who she prayed cared enough about him to choose saving his life over keeping the circus code of silence.

Lisbon knocked on the door of the trailer belonging to a man she had met only once. A man Jane had introduced to her as Pete. Noises from inside said someone was home. After a moment, the door opened and the same man she remembered looked out. “Pepper??” He said.

“Uh, Teresa Lisbon. You remember me, Mr uh – Pete?”

“’Course. Any friend of Paddy is a friend of mine, even if she is a damn interfering cop.” He waved her inside. The place was untidy and stunk of bacon grease, and Pete seemed to have aged a decade in the two years since she’d last seen him. “How are you sir?”

He motioned for her to sit in the only chair available. As she did he perched himself back on his bed, lighting a cigarette. Through a puff of grey smoke he said “Come on, you’re here to talk about Paddy, what’s he done now? You two dating now or something? Pat always liked the smart ones.”

Lisbon smiled perfunctorily at the weak joke. “No, I’m sorry to tell you that Jane is missing – kidnapped by we think Red John.”

At his silence and unnerving stare, she elaborated. “Red John’s a serial killer, he –“

“I know who he is, young lady. Or rather I know what he did to Paddy. Damn near destroyed that boy is what that sonuv’-a-bitch did. I’d like to put a bullet in that red bastard myself if I could walk any distance.” He pointed to his knees. “Arthritic as hell. Can’t hardly climb a stair anymore.”

“Sir, were-“

“Would you call me Pete? You’re in my damn house, seems to me like we can be on a first name basis.”

“Of course, I’m sorry. Pete, the team, his colleagu - Jane’s friends - are working on a theory on who this Red John might be and I have a few questions. I’d appreciate any help or idea you might have. Is that all right?’

“Won’t know until you ask ‘em.” He said, shrugging.

For a fleeting second Lisbon was reminded of Jane. “Okay. Do you have any idea at all of anyone in Jane’s past who might bear him a grudge? Someone who maybe didn’t get along with him or someone who maybe had reason to hate him?”

“You’re talking circus people.”

“Yes.”

“Miss, circus folk are different than you Gillies out there.”

“Gillies?”

“Non-circus people – a townie – an outsider. You have no idea of the kind of bonds that are forged growing up in this way of life. We’re a family.”

“I’m sure that’s true but you didn’t answer my question.”

“Family does not betray family?”

“Even when one family member brutally murders two others and then torments the survivor for years after? Doesn’t sound like the kind of family I’d want to be a part of, how about you?”

“No one here ever did any such thing to Paddy. He was a good boy. He was well liked, and he listened to his elders, even that miserable fist of his.”

“I’m sorry – Jane’s fist?”

“His father. When Jane didn’t do well or play his best con, his father took it out of him. Everybody liked Paddy, no one liked his dad. Now did his father, miserable bastard that he was, kill Paddy’s wife and baby? No.”

Lisbon was tired of hearing about the “special bond” between circus people and their code of silence even one of their members was in grave danger. “Red John has Jane again. You heard me when I told you that part – right? We found Jane – Paddy’s blood on his kitchen floor. A lot of blood and that means he’ already hurt – he could be dead and unless someone opens up around here, we may never know what happened to him. Does your code allow for compassion? Please tell me it does because without your help your Paddy whom you claim to be so fond of will most probably die under Red John’s knife.”

Pete stared back his face flushed. If it was anger or her impudence she did not care, as long as she got what she came for.

Pete sucked in some smoke and let it out through yellowed nostrils. “I wish I had something sp’cific to tell you.” He finally said. “The only thing I can remember is there was this one, uh, “incident” is the word you law types like to use. When Paddy’s mom was still alive, she had some “ties” happen with this other family who was around for maybe, oh, ‘bout four years before they moved on. I think they went back to the non-world. But Paddy’s mom had, well an affair with this other’s wife’s husband. I heard there was a baby out of it and old man Jane and his wife had a huge clem over it.”

He saw her confusion. “A fight, Pepper, a fight. Anyway, a year or so later mother Jane gave birth to Paddy so I guess she and old man Jane reconciled long enough for that, but then she died of cancer before Paddy was a year old, so he never knew his mother, ya’ see, and we never talked about it around ‘im. The other baby disappeared – now don’t ask me where because I don’t know. But Paddy and his father kept on with the family show ‘til Paddy turned eighteen. By that time he hated, well, not the life so much as the con. I don’t care what else you may have heard about our Paddy but he hated hurting those people who came. To him taking their money was like stealing, and it was eating his insides up – you know?”

Lisbon nodded, assuring him that yes she did.

“A few months after he met Angela he told his dad he was leaving and together she and him lit’ out for good.”

“Was the child a boy?”

“Eh?”

“The other baby you mentioned – was it a boy?”

“Eh, b’lieve so, yes. Don’t know what happened to the other wife or what, but Paddy got out and I’m glad he did. Once he learned Paddy had become a townie, his old man never spoke to him again until the day he died.”

Lisbon had not heard this side of the tale before. Jane, whenever he had spoken of his past in the briefly granted snippets here and there, had for her benefit been screening out the more unhappy parts. Perhaps because he was embarrassed, or because the memories were too painful, or simply because he desired privacy - Lisbon did not know for sure but she was silently grateful to Pete for opening her eyes just a little wider to what Jane was – and where-from he had arisen - those things which had moulded him into the highly unique person she knew and talked to every day.

“Now I got a question for you, Pepper.”

“Yes?” For pressing time’s sake, she ignored the made-up moniker.

“Is Paddy happy with you? With you and that CBI thing he’s got himself involved in?”

It was a question she had asked herself now and again. “I think it’s the happiest he’s been since the death of his wife.”

Pete searched her face, looking for traces of dishonesty. “Hm.” He finally said, apparently satisfied. “Poor Paddy.” He remarked. “We missed him around here. Funny kid. Funny and odd I mean. Out of place here, but still a good kid, a real good kid. Just unlucky enough to have a mean streak of a fist for a father.”

Pete jabbed his almost finished cigarette butt at her. “Don’t never let anyone tell you Paddy’s anything but a good boy. He is. He’s a good boy. He just...” Pete’s eyes turned inward, and his thoughts had clearly travelled out of the room and beyond the police woman who sat on his chair and talked to him of hard things past. So sincere were his eyes that Lisbon was forced to believe every word.

And then his thoughts returned to the room and he stared at the floor between their two sets of shoes. When he spoke his voice was sad and tender for the boy he remembered who’d had it hard. “He just had too much ...hurt in his life for it to be good for ‘im, ya’ understan’? That changes a person, too much hurt. It ain’t right; you know when a father don’t love his son. It just ain’t natural. Paddy had to learn to survive for himself, Pepper, and that ain’t an easy thing to do with us circus folk. No, not an easy thing at all.” He looked up at her again. “You’ll find him, won’t ya’? And bring him home?”

Lisbon made the promise, even if this time she didn‘t wholly believe it herself. This time she was more scared for Jane than ever and she didn’t know why other than her own memories of Red John haunting her dreams since Jane was taken. It seems there had been so much blood, that it was spilling over from her nightmares into her daylight. “We’re going to do everything we can.”

“Then go do it. Bring our Paddy back home, girl. Jane was a good boy, a good boy...”

He heaved a heavy sigh replete with memories best forgotten. Pete said “He doesn’t deserve this.”

CBI

The team would have found his blood and the scene at his apartment. Lisbon would have already spoken to Bertram to ask for the case and whatever leads they believed they had they would now all have begun perusing under Lisbon’s excellent leadership. Four days after his disappearance, the team would have begun to hope for him, or to despair for him, dependent upon their individual leanings as to religion, fate or luck.

Jane pulled the letter he had composed from his pants pocket. It was on the same type of paper Red John had used before in correspondence to him or to CBI, and the same type of ink. Even the handwriting was the same, or as close as he could make it. He just needed a little more time to finish things with Red John. The letter would buy him the time, as long as he could keep Red John too occupied to notice. Jane shuddered to think of what might happen should the serial killer discover his favourite toy writing letters in his hand-script and signing them using his infamous pseudonym.

But the letter had to be sent.

CBI

It arrived with the regular mail and Lisbon sorted through the bundle of correspondence with worried fingers until she came upon it. It was addressed to the team, not to her, unusual in itself. She tore it open and stopped breathing when a small piece of paper fluttered out of the envelope first, drifting to her desk to smile up at her. A red face drawn in what appeared to be blood, now dried and wrinkling the paper. A single sheet of folded was all that remained and she took it put, unfolding it carefully. Calling forensics never even crossed her mind. Red john would not have left any evidence of himself anyway. He was far too careful; a high functioning serial killer with an OCD for neatness.

She could hear her heart inside her chest and feel the blood rushing through her head while she read it silently: “Teresa, We are new acquaintances, you and I, and so it is to you I write. Jane is alive for now. Do not force me to change that fact by looking for him or questioning his former associates any further. What do they know of loyalty? Did they not abandon Patrick to a violent father while I have taken him under my wing? Have I not proved to you my generosity with his life? Give me no cause to alter that grace. Respectfully – RJ”

Lisbon pushed the letter away from her, resting her forehead in cupped hands until she could put two useful thoughts together. How could they stop looking, knowing what Red John might be doing to him? They were government agents, investigators – they worked to save people, not leave them at the mercy of killers and perverts based upon a killer’s word that could not possibly be taken at face value. What worth did Red John’s word have against beatings and rape? Or against a horrible scar Jane would carry for the rest of his life?

Lisbon stood, exhausted to her core for having slept so few hours over thus many days. She gathered the hated missive into her hand to show to the team. They were all strung out and running into dead ends. Pete had told her just enough to show her that he had told her nothing really new, nothing that they had not already conjectured upon. But together they at least could decide what to do next.

 

Next would come all too soon.

CBI

Red Matter - and Shatter Part 5

C—B—I  
“You are mine, Patrick, don’t ever forget that. And I’ve come to understand - an incredible thing really - I’ve come to understand that I am yours. No one will ever touch you the way I can and in a way you are always touching me, even in my dreams. I am so very fond of you that it surprises me. I suppose for you I have what you might call a weakness.”  
C-B-I

“We keep looking for him – why are we even discussing this?” Cho argued.

Lisbon sympathised but what Cho wanted wasn’t necessarily paramount. What was good for Jane’s present welfare was. “We have two options and someone jump in if they see a third one that I don’t okay? Option number One: We ignore Red John’s letter and continue our research into Jane’s past, try to figure out who Red John is and maybe find Jane, or option Two: we do what Red John says and stop looking. In my mind there’s only one question we need to ask: which choice will ensure Jane’s life?”

“I have a better question.” Cho said. “Why would Red John let him go now?”

Rigsby, Lisbon and Van Pelt all looked at the other hoping someone would come up with brilliance.

Cho gave it to them. “Because he doesn’t have to anymore, that is if we stop looking. We quit and Red John has no worries of being hunted and he’ll - if you get me - take his time with Jane, so I don’t see quitting as any kind of option.”

Either choice carried risks to Jane. There was no doubt in her mind that once Red John was bored with his cat-and-mouse with Patrick Jane, he would kill him without hesitation. In a turn of a shadow Jane could go from living but harmed to stone-cold dead. Disposing of Jane would be a routine act for Red john, like the way people took out the garbage. Once the refuse is in the bag at the curb, does anyone give it a second’s consideration?

Lisbon was glad Cho had chosen as he did. She said. “We’re his family and that makes Jane part of ours, so as a family I say we take a vote. Raise your hands those of you who want to keep looking.”

Everyone did as Lisbon was confident they would. “It’s decided – we keep looking.”

CBI

Day seven arrived after what felt like an eternity of killing time in his hotel room. But he spent some of that time reading up on weapon’s use. He also took on three afternoons at a local target practise arena with an instructor. It was a risk, leaving the hotel but he had to if he wanted to be ready, if he wanted to be certain he would not miss.

Firing a hand gun was a whole new experience. Jane had only fired a weapon once in his life - a rifle – and miraculously it had hit its target a lethal blow despite his awkward grip and the angle at which he had held it; not up against his shoulder but fired from the hip. He recalled the hard kick and, when under the spray of his next shower, surprised to find the deep bruise.

Gripping a hand gun was more difficult. Its barrel was shorter, his hand shook no matter how hard he tried to make his nerves and muscles cooperate and according to his instructor – an ex-cop - even his heartbeat changed the trajectory of the bullet. And then there was wind cross-current to consider plus whether to go for a head or torso shot. A head shot was more deadly more quickly, but a human torso was a larger target - less chance he would miss. After the end of each lesson, he came to respect his colleague’s abilities and training a little more.

Jane kept the gun loaded and tucked into the back of his suit pants just as he’d seen Lisbon and the other members of the team do so when going under cover.

Heron’s Head was a twenty minute taxi ride away but Jane had the cab drop him off two blocks away. Paying the cabbie, he walked the last two blocks and found a spot at the end of a short peer where he could wait and watch for Red John. It was a chilly night and he turned up his collar, wrapping his arms around himself to keep warm.

Jane’s taxi cab turned around and drove away, but was pulled over by a pedestrian after half a block. The man in a dark coat and thick glasses climbed in and passed a hundred dollar bill through the fare slot. He said: “Where did you pick up your last fare?”

The fare’s voice was pitched high up in his nose. “Uh-h, I really can’t tell you that, sir, I could lose my job.” The driver said.

Another hundred dollar bill was passed through the slot between the back and front seats. “I won’t tell anyone? Where?”

He sounded confident, like a man used to getting his own way. The cabbie fingered the money but hesitated, frowning in the mirror at his odd fare. “Just let me call you in first – “

“Stay off the radio and I’ll give you another hundred. Where did you pick him up? Take me there and I’ll make it four hundred altogether - all for you. I require no receipt so you don’t even have to report it. Now tell me – which hotel?”

He couldn’t help but be interested, but also curious. “This is kinda’ weird pal. Why do you need to know anyway?”

“I’m planning a surprise for a friend. Four hundred dollars – agreed? Now – where did you pick up the blonde?”

The driver nodded, knowing his fare could see him through the plastic partition. Four hundred bucks was more than he would normally take in after a whole twelve hour shift. Besides it was late. A nice chunk of money under the table once in a while didn’t hurt anyone, least of all him. And he could go home early to boot. “Hey – it’s your money.” He shrugged. “I’m all for surprises.”

“Excellent.”

CBI

Sitting still just made it seemed colder and Jane stood, pacing back and forth. Every-so-often his fingers felt for the handle of the automatic, reassuring himself that it was still there, ready to be whipped out and fired. He would shoot until it was empty - firing all eleven bullets into Red John.

Or Red John would somehow kill him. But it didn’t matter anymore. He just didn’t care. He was too tired, too worn out to keep this hunt up any longer. Tonight would finish this twisted game Red John had begun, one he had been forced to play for already years too long.

The ocean rushed ashore in furious caps of froth, beating against the wooden peer and spraying icy mist across everything. The sun set and the moon rose behind thin clouds. An hour had passed, and then two before Jane accepted that he had been stood up.

Now what? Jane located a phone booth and dialled for another taxi. When it showed, he climbed in the back and instructed the driver to take a convoluted route back to his hotel. Though it sounded like something out of a B movie, Jane said. “I want to make sure we’re not being followed. Can you do that?”

“Do my best, mister, but it’ll cost ya’ extra.”

“Don’t care about the money. Just take your time and watch the rear-view mirror.”

“Sure.”

Jane’s cab left Heron’s Head for the downtown core. Once back in his room he sat down to some furious thought. It was not like Red John to ignore a challenge unless – perhaps something had prevented him from showing up? Jane played with the corner of a new piece of paper. What should he write now? His whole scheme to kill Red John was not going as planned and he was at a temporary loss as to his next move.

Jane picked up his pen and wrote.

“Where were you burning tiger? The stars threw down their spears and water’d heaven with their tears and under these skies I wait in fears.”

As butchering Blake poetry went, it wasn’t his best effort but he was determined. He stuffed it into a ready envelope but stopped before licking the flap. No, this one he would send via email from the Internet cafe on the corner. It was faster.

CBI

Lisbon poured over Cho and Rigsby’s notes regarding several people from Jane’s past, the interviews they had done had shed no new light on Red John or Jane’s possible where-a-bouts. She was beginning to think the carnie theory wasn’t as clever as she had first hoped.

Her phone rang for the tenth time that morning and she jumped. She had half a mind to tear it out of the wall but instead did what she always did, took a calming breath, picked it up and said. “Lisbon here.”

“Agent Lisbon?” A voice she did not recognise.

“Yes?” Come on, pal, get to the point already. Her patience was barely functioning at all.

“This is Sergeant Leightman of the Oakland PD – Third Precinct. Um, we have a body here...”

Great. Another case, just what they needed when they were up to their eyeballs in missing Jane and thirty interviews to go. Bored already with the idea of helping out yet another precinct with a sole murder, Lisbon sighed into the phone not caring whether Leightman heard her or not. Sometimes she wished Bertram wasn’t so damn politically minded. Good relations were one thing but farming out her team to every damn drug murder that came along jus to please a mayor he barely knew – “Sergeant Leightman? Can I do something for you, sir? Because we’re pretty busy here and -“

“-I think it might be your missing guy.”

Suddenly Lisbon could not breathe. She sat for a few seconds with the phone pressed against her ear, not breathing. Then she commanded her lungs to start doing their job again and took one, two deep intakes of air, sucking in the oxygen rich air and releasing the carbon dioxide escape with slow, sober release. But the calming technique was not enough to ease her pounding heart or keep the tremor out of her voice. “I-is there a description? Ah, I n-need a description.”

“Yeah, uh...curly blonde, five eleven, maybe hundred-seventy pounds...” Lisbon realised he was reading them off a police report. It was exactly the way she would expect a description to be written down on a standard homicide police report. “He was found yesterday afternoon in a hotel room when he failed to check out. The clothes look right. No ID but it could be your guy. Hard to tell though, even with the MISPER. And there was the signature – that serial killer, Red John? The bloody smiling face thing?”

They had sent out a Missing Person’s bulletin with Jane’s picture to every county precinct and Sherriff’s office in central California the morning after he went missing. “Hard to tell?” Lisbon tried not to think what that might mean. “How, um, do you kno- h-how was he killed?” She swallowed so hard it hurt.

“Throat slashed and sorry to be so graphic but he was gutted. And the sick fuck posed him – er – sorry for the language. Face was cut up pretty good, too. That’s why we’re not sure. Is there any family?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, there is.” A memory was suddenly there before her eyes of Jane smiling at the cake they had gotten for him when he left the hospital the last time, and its brown crumbs clinging to his grinning face. Forcing that memory aside, Lisbon tried to remember back to all of the Red John cases and whether Red John had ever slashed one of his victim’s faces. She thought maybe there had been one or two, but Red John had killed so many and she just couldn’t exactly recall. “May I have your address there?” Jesus...don’t let it be Jane. Please, please....

“The body’s already been sent to the morgue. I can get the address for you if you want.”

Not Jane. Please not Jane...“Never mind, I’ll get it myself. Thank you, Sergeant.” Painted smiling face thing. Drawn with blood and dripping down onto a corpse left to be found, no more valued than a run-over dog on the Interstate. Red John’s murders had dripped down onto her desk and into her professional and private life, having brought Jane to her office door not more than four years ago.

She shook her head, remembering that first case, the teams’ resentment and her own doubts about the likely hood he would last. Jane had surprised them all with his ingenuity and unique talents. Now the blood Red John left behind everywhere dripped regularly and endlessly into her personal chasm of terror. Every time a Red John case came along, she spent those hours or days in fear for Jane.

Lisbon hung up the phone with deliberate and exacting movements. She waited until she was sure she could walk steadily and calmly into the outer offices where Rigsby, Cho and Van Pelt were at their desks, working the case and talking to each other, arguing the validity of this point or that idea, together, side by side in both discord and harmony. Like a family.

“Hey.” She said, not looking at any one of them directly, but rather at the carpet in front of her. It needed steam cleaning. There was also a cigarette burn near Cho’s desk and she briefly wondered who would have been smoking in here. The carpet was charcoal black in that spot. It wasn’t fair. Why must a thing be ruined?

“Hey boss” Van Pelt said in greeting. “Cho thinks his lead may be a hit - I crossed-checked the guy’s social security number with the abandoned house in town where we found the photo and – “

“Good.” Lisbon said, stopping her. This was more urgent. “That’s good Grace but right now I need someone to go down to Oakland.” She had to stop to clear her throat. Why did phlegm always build up right when you needed to say something important, or something awful?

“There’s a body in the morgue there that could be Jane.” Lisbon rushed on, not allowing her agents a moment to interrupt or speak a word. “I just got a call from Oakland PD, they think it could be Jane – physical description’s a match - but they’re not sure, so I don’t want anyone jumping to any conclusions okay?”

Suddenly a rage coursed through her from foot to tip. Her hands were shaking and she clawed them to her sides so it wouldn’t show. For the first time Lisbon looked at her agents, focusing in on Rigsby first. “Would you mind going, Rigsby? I have a briefing with Bertram in t-twenty minutes.” Her voice broke a little and she knew she was close to screaming or pounding the walls.

Rigsby swallowed, and Lisbon watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed once up and down on his long neck. Rigsby glanced over at Cho who was staring at Lisbon silently, his face unreadable. “Uh, sure, boss, yeah, no problem.”

Van Pelt had dropped her eyes away from her boss’s stricken face and kept them on her computer screen, trying to control her watering eyes.

Cho said. “I’m going too.”

Lisbon didn’t care that Cho said it as fact and not as a request. Of course she would let him go. She would go if she could. Bertram and his fucking briefing. “Thanks. Call me when you know.”

CBI

“I’ve finished the autopsy.” Oakland County’s Medical Examiner met them in his office. He and the agents exchanged hand-shakes. “Agent Rigsby is it? And Cho? Doctor Shawn Carriere, good to meet you. I hear this might be your guy – if so I’m sorry. You ready to see him?”

Cho nodded and he and Rigsby followed Doctor Shawn Carriere down a hall to a stair well. One floor down Carriere took out a ring of keys and unlocked a thick door, showing them into a cool, dark room. Switching on a light, the room was illuminated and in the center sat an autopsy table complete with drain for escaping fluids, cleaned and ready for its next body. Over it hung a thick snake of a water hose, the kind with the off/on spray switch, for use after samples and evidence had been collected. For washing away blood, feces and all the oozing fluids a dead human body produces. One wall was lined with three rows of square doors behind which bodies could be stored until a determination was made as to where they were to be shipped next.

“No drugs in his system, no wounds other than the one that killed him and some violent post-mortem cutting.” Carriere explained. He unlocked a body storage door on the second tier from the floor at the far end of the row. He grasped the end of the tray and pulled. It rolled out easily on sets of tiny rubber wheels. The body was covered with a bleached white cotton sheet. The air smelled antiseptic with an underlying stink of something raw and wet, like the inside of a thawing freezer that someone had pulled the plug on.

Carriere looked at both agents. “He was cut up pretty badly.” He warned them.

Beside him Rigsby could see Cho go stiff, steeling himself. Rigsby found himself sweating despite the coolness of the room.

Cho said “Just show us.”

Carriere pulled the sheet back to expose the torso to the hip bones. The victim had been mutilated. He was nude, the skin grey-white with some extensive bruising where the flesh on his abdomen had been cut and in some places even torn open. The face was covered in long cut marks. So many vicious wounds had been done to the face that, had it not been otherwise obvious, it would be difficult to tell whether the victim had been male or female. One eye was missing and one particular attack had nearly severed the nose.

Cho ignored the gaping wounds that the ME had tried to close with post mortem stitching, with limited success. He looked at the hair. Much of the blood had been washed out and its blondeness was obvious.

The blonde was like Jane’s but – “Is that natural blonde?” Rigsby asked.

Carriere looked closely. “I never examined it – there was no request by the investigating detective but it could be a dye job, yeah. Your guy a natural?”

Cho nodded as a vision went though his mind of Jane’s soft, clean smelling curls slipping between his fingers while he lay on top of him, his own body pumping up and down, all but sweetly and gloriously consuming Jane’s ravishing flesh, was still fresh and vivid in his memory. The pain of what he might already have lost was building in his chest. He stepped back, forcing himself to look at the body.

Jane’s skin, with which Cho had become quite familiar, was from chest to foot white, smooth, and almost hairless. This corpse had a little hair on its belly but it was a sparse, very light brown and it tested his memory. Did Jane have any hair there or not? Cho realised he had never seen Jane naked with the lights on, although during their last love-making session he had freely put his hands almost everywhere on the blonde that he could reach. In doing so he had learned a few things such as Jane being incredibly ticklish on his inner thighs and exquisitely sensitive to touch between his neck and clavicles where Cho had delighted in spending much time teasing with his lips and teeth, scraping his incisors all along those softly curved bones.

But none of that would help here. There was however one sure way to tell if this was Jane or not. “I need to see the whole body.” Cho said.

Carriere raised an eyebrow but complied by removing the sheet off completely, rolling it back and leaving it in a bundle below the bluish feet.

While Carriere was folding back the sheet, Cho kept his eyes closed, preparing himself for the worst, and then opened them again, looking on the body where he needed to know for certain if this was his dead lover or an unlucky stranger. Rigsby was himself looking but saw nothing new except for bruises on the legs and even more knife wounds on the hips.

But for Cho one glance was enough. “It’s not Jane.” The stress that had been building in him drained away like dirty water down a pipe, leaving his limbs weak. Not him. Not Jane. Not. Cho composed himself to speak and let them in on it. “This man is not circumcised. Jane is an atheist now but he was raised Catholic. When he was a baby, his parents had him cut.”

While he let that hang in the air for a moment, giving the others time to clue in as to how he would know such an intimate thing about his work-mate, Cho pulled out his cellular. “I’ll call Lisbon.”

He turned away from the pitiful corpse, saying to Carriere. “Thank you doctor.”

CBI

When Lisbon broke the good news to Van Pelt, that’s when the tears fell from her grief struck, beautiful eyes. She impulsively gave Lisbon a crushing hug and then went back to her desk to finish up some work. It was not Jane, only some poor soul who had fallen under the knife of Red John. It was another murder, and both a relief and a terribly sad, criminal waste of a human life.

“It’s weird, though, don’t you think?” Van Pelt said to her boss. “I mean Jane’s missing and here the man who gets killed by Red John isn’t Jane. Don’t take this the wrong way but...shouldn’t it be?”

Lisbon returned to her office to await Cho and Rigsby. It was food for thought.

CBI

After days had gone by and it was clear Red John would not respond, Jane found himself at a loss. Should he keep trying? He had enough hidden cash to live off the grid for years. Should he go home? Just show up at CBI and say it was all a ruse to catch Red John? Lisbon would kill him herself.

To sort out the problem, Jane donned dark glasses and took a walk to the corner cafe, ordering tea and a chicken salad sandwich. He spent some time just eating and looking out the window to the people walking by. Ordinary people, off to work or shopping or other errands, some alone or in pairs. Some with children.

Jane never let himself think about normal too much. He liked normal. He liked going out with friends and used to spend Saturdays with his family at the park or at the beach or lake, or in the shopping malls everyone went to. Like them, he had been fairly ordinary once. Jane washed the sandwich down with the last of his tea, but it was hard to tear his eyes away from the simple things going on around him. They mostly looked content, those people out there going off to do their normal things.

Suddenly Jane found himself in a black depression. Perhaps he should just leave California altogether and forget his hunt for revenge? That’s what Angela would have wanted, there was no denying it. He stared down into the dregs of his tea cup. His eye knew immediately what he would say had this been a client’s tea cup, the “fortune” immediately coming to him out of years of training, a talent – a remnant of his abandoned life; reading fortunes in tea cups, and it would have been just as much as lie as any other con he and his father had pulled.

His heart was weighed down with indecision and his chest felt hollow. He felt his eyes water up and stood to leave, not wanting the sadness that was beginning to envelope him have its way. He walked back toward the hotel. Another family, a mother and daughter, approached. The mother was a brunette but the little girl of perhaps five or six was as blonde as the sun and smiling up at him. The mother held her daughter’s hand tightly while she took a minute to window shop.

Jane smiled back at the little girl, and impulsively crouched down to say hello.

The mother noticed and pulled her daughter away. “Don’t talk to my daughter!” She said, anger sparking in her voice. “Is that what you do? Go around trying to talk to little girls?”

An over-reaction on her part but Jane could see how his actions might be misinterpreted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything really...by it.” He straightened up and dropped his eyes away from the mother back to the little girl. He couldn’t help it, she had the same blue eyes and the same coloured hair and the same impish smile, as though she was planning mischief for later. Jane said while not taking his eyes off the woman’s daughter. “It’s just...she looks...she reminds me of my daughter.”

Some of the open suspicion left her expression but she still held tightly onto her little girl’s hand. “Oh? Where is she?” The implication in the question was: why wasn’t he with his kid instead of accosting hers?

Jane looked straight into the mother’s eyes, suddenly and deeply jealous of her. And profoundly angry at this stranger and her life that was so simple. This mother believed that everything she had was permanent. And the worst part of it, the part that was suddenly cutting Jane up inside, was that she was probably right. Her daughter would grow up and become a beautiful woman, marry, probably have kids and undoubtedly a good life.

His sole possession in life was a crazed murderer and Jane wanted to make this woman see that sometimes things are no so permanent. Sometimes things, the most precious things, can be taken from you without a word of warning. “She was murdered by a serial killer.”

That was all the woman needed to hear and she pulled her daughter along, putting distance between herself and the blonde creep they shouldn’t have spoken to in the first place.

Jane returned to his hotel room and shed his suit jacket and shoes. He unbuttoned his vest and took that off, needing to breath. The room was in shadow and he turned on a few lights to illuminate the corners. The housekeeper had made the bed and emptied the plastic garbage cans.

But had she left clean towels? Jane opened the bathroom door to check and jumped back, a gasp escaping his lips, his heart suddenly racing and his lungs pumping air, in and out like billows. One moment he was wandering through his head in a depression like none he had experienced in years, the next he was leaping away at the sight that greeted him.

The housekeeper he had seen on his floor earlier, going from room to room, tending to the linens and the beds, including his own room, lay in a pool of her own blood, her throat slashed and Red John’s sign, a smiling red face, splashed on the wall above her body. On the shelves over the toilet fresh white towels were stacked, polka-dotted with red.

For a second to two Jane was frozen in place and then in the next second it came to him that he might not be alone. He spun, his right hand reaching for the gun tucked into the back waist of his pants, but he wasn’t quite fast enough, with regret coming to know that when a powerful left arm wrapped around his throat from behind and held fast. A second hand not his own expertly felt for and removed the gun from his waist.

Jane stood very still as the muzzle of his own weapon was placed against his temple. The arm dropped away from Jane’s throat and placed it gently, almost lovingly, on his left shoulder. The remembered and hated voice whispered in his ear. “Patrick. You’re carrying a gun now? Guns are very dangerous. Here, let me keep it for you before you hurt yourself.”

Jane endured it as Red John moved his hand from his shoulder down to his waist and rested there, freely caressing his skin through his shirt. “I’ve missed you, Patrick, very much. But I’m not pleased with you right now, coming here, demanding to see me, and trying to flatter me into letting down my guard. But, yes, I have missed you.”

Red John continued to stroke his hand across Jane’s side and abdomen, inching ever lower until his fingers brushed against the base of his penis. “This is nice, isn’t it?” Red John asked sweetly, his foul breath tickling Jane’s right ear, making him shiver.

“Why, Patrick, I believe you’re trembling.” Jane jumped when Red John stuck his tongue out and licked the side of his neck, and nibbled at the skin between his shoulder and collar bone. “So am I.” A long amorous sigh emanated from his attacker. “But unfortunately I do not have the time for a prolonged reunion, but this is nice, yes. Do you know Patrick?” Red John whispered into his ear, “that no one can do for you the way I can? That no one ever will? Not even that Asian who keeps fucking you, that impertinent slut.”

Jane heard the hotel room closet door slide open on its rollers but Red John just kept talking. “You are mine, Patrick, don’t ever forget that. And I’ve come to understand - an incredible thing really - I’ve come to understand that I am yours. No one will ever touch you the way I can and in a way you are always touching me, even in my dreams. I am so very fond of you that it surprises me. I suppose for you I have what you might call a weakness. But we will not dwell on that. Your Asian can fuck you in my stead until we next meet. In the meantime, I sent them a little blonde gift to keep them occupied until you go back – won’t they be surprised?”

Red John nuzzled his scratchy chin against Jane’s neck and Jane was shocked to feel no mask. Then he heard the scraping noise of cheap plastic and realised Red John had merely had the mask lifted part way up and it was most likely back in place now. “But we’ll have to help you, won’t we, my friend? Because you’ve left yourself no way back without our assistance. I mean you can’t perform such a nasty ruse on your friends and then just go home again.”

Red John felt for a located the thick bandage Jane had applied to the deep cut he had made on his left forearm. “That was quite clever, Patrick, cutting your own arm in order to spill your own blood at your own apartment. It fooled them, too. They’ll be simply furious with you – you might even get fired and I cannot allow that, so we shall have to convince them to take you back. How’s that with you, hmm?”

The pressure of the muzzle against his skull never eased off for a second and Jane, as much simpler as it would be to bolt and be shot to death thus ending the entire ordeal, did not twitch a muscle as Red John touched him and whispered sweet things into his ear. Jane was shocked to find that he actually wanted to live just a fraction more than he wanted to have his revenge, even if that revenge was merely to deny Red John his living body.

Jane felt shame at what he decided was weakness and began shaking all over. He could not stop the tremors and wondered for what reason at this point would his body need to betray him.

Red John did not fail to notice the shaking and ran fingers gently through his hair to sooth away any doubts as to his sincerity. “There, there, don’t be so upset, Patrick, this is a good thing. You can go back to hunting for me and I can go back to planning our next secret encounter. It’s win-win – Josh!”

A man stepped forward, right into Jane’s line-of-sight. He was balding, beefy and wore no mask and Jane knew immediately what that last meant. It meant the fellow was either drugged and under Red John’s mental control or was simply a hired thug to do Red John’s bidding – for a price – until Red John had no further use for him. Jane doubted the hired man imagined that his only reward would be a bullet in his head and a knife across his throat. Jane had no idea what Red John intended by the man but he could well imagine many awful things.

Red John spoke to the man he called Josh. “You shall start and keep going until I say stop. Do you understand?”

The fellow, looking Jane up and down with mild interest, nodded.

“Until I say stop. Now we need to get him to the vehicle. It is downstairs – yes?”

The fellow nodded and it irritated Red John. “Can you speak?”

“Yes.”

“Then do it. Let’s begin.”

From his jean jacket pocket, the hired man pulled a syringe and removed the plastic tip. Red John explained. “This is only for the trip home, Patrick, do not be alarmed.”

But to prevent any instinctive struggle Red John wrapped his arm around his throat once more, and held tight. Jane began to see stars from the lack of oxygen. “Hurry up.” Red John barked impatiently and the man stepped forward, raising the needle.

Jane felt a tiny prick.

CBI  
Red Matter - and Shatter Part 6

C-B-I  
“John,” He whispered it so softly and with such conviction and reluctant affection, only the killer could possibly have heard and believed. Only a murderer with the ego of ten would embrace such flattery and accept it as a debt long owed. “P-please don’t leave me.”  
C-B-I

Jane woke up in motion or, rather, the vehicle he was in was in motion. He could not move at all. Whatever Red John’s henchman Josh had injected into him, it had taken away his voluntary muscle control, leaving him like a rag doll and he helplessly bounced and jiggled on the metal floor of what was – he supposed – an older van, the larger box type though not a cube van as the front cab where his two abductors were sitting were visible from where he lay.

Red John was right in front of him, but Jane could not see his face. Red John’s hair was short and brown and he had a small bald spot, like millions of North American males. His neck was short and fat and he wore a black or perhaps a dark blue jacket.

It wasn’t enough.

Jane looked over the vehicles’ interior. Whether it was Red John’s van or belonged to the hired help he had no idea, but as best as he could in the dark he tried to memorize whatever visible details there were. There were not many. Who’s ever vehicle it was, the carpet and inside features had been stripped from it to no doubt obscure its make and model.

Instead Jane closed his eyes, trying to cement the sound of its engine in his mind, and the smells that surrounded him; oil, sweat, leather, cheap after-shave. Minty - the green stuff maybe that in the bottle looked like mouthwash. He had no idea how long they had been driving but the vehicle finally rolled to a stop and a hand brake was applied. Standard transmission then. Who made standard vans?

Jane saw the passenger who was Red John reach for a ski mask and put it on, then bark an order to the driver to pull under some trees, and the van was put into gear for another short way before the engine was shut off. Josh the driver got out and Jane could hear his footsteps on gravel walking from the front to the rear doors. A key was used in the lock and one of the doors swung open. The driver took hold of Jane’s right ankle and pulled hard. Jane felt himself sliding out the back and he scrambled for a hold with drug-weakened fingers to stop the rough treatment, but to no avail, flopping onto the gravel, landing with a grunt hard on his side.

Red John walked over to stare down at him. “I must leave you shortly Patrick, but my assistant Josh will take care of you now. Don’t worry. Your friends at the CBI will take you back without a word – I promise.” He crouched down and took a fist-full of Jane’s hair. “Don’t try this again, or I shall be forced to kill her next time. Next time it will not be a simple fire, next time the pretty red-head will get a knife. She’ll become my newest art piece, and that I also promise.”

Red John looked at his hired man and nodded. “Begin. And remember, no permanent damage.”

Josh spoke. “Yeah, I know, I know.” He hauled back and kicked Jane square in the stomach as hard as he could. Jane doubled up on the ground, barely able to catch a breath after such a blow. Then the fellow aimed for his face and did the same, kicking him until his nose bled and he saw stars. Leaning down, Red John’s handy-man switched to using his fists and pounded on Jane face and torso with steel-like hammer blows. Jane could do nothing to get away from it, the numbing drugs still coursing through–out his body.

Red John’s man continued the assault until Jane was gasping for every breath and coughing blood-stained saliva onto the gravel.

“Enough.” Red John said and the storm of fists and feet ceased.

Jane watched in helpless horror as Red John removed something from is coat pocket, sliding out a metal object from its holder. Through the tree branches blades of light filtered in from an early red dawn, reflecting off the knife’s surface. Jane recognised it as Red John’s signature curved instrument being drawn from its sheath.

Red John crouched down once more. “Patrick, your CBI police friends will never believe it was me who took you if you are not carrying at least one cut that speaks of me. Besides, you gave me my very own scar the last time we met. Only polite.”

Jane sucked in a sharp breath as Red John swiftly and expertly drew the blade half way across his throat from center to right with the precision of a master-craftsman. Something he did everyday without a second thought, or even a first one. To begin with all Jane felt was the pressure of the knife, and then something warm and wet as his blood seeped out of the long wound, hurrying toward the gravel in tiny rivulets. This was followed by a stinging pain that got worse as the seconds passed.

“There we are.” Red John explained in a voice very much akin a waitress who had just served him up a first rate lunch. “You’ll be fine now.”

Red John stared down at his repeat victim and Jane had a feeling he knew what was coming. It was time for Red John to make his exit. And dramatic it had to be or his ego would not be satisfied.

“O Earth, O Earth, return.” Red John quoted in his full demon’s guise, the pseudo-man disappearing once more. “Arise from out the dewy grass. Night is worn - and the morn’ – rises from the slumberous mass.”

Jane’s body hurt all over. He wanted to scream and beat his fists against uncontrollable forces that said his second encounter with Red John was almost over and it had to end like this; with him in agony on the ground and Red John still hidden behind a mask. In the next minute, after quoting the ridiculous verse, Red John would walk away once more, his identity intact, his power undiminished.

Red John pointed to the plastic zip ties that bound Jane’s hands and ankles together. His hired bruiser Josh took out a pocket knife, slipped the blade between the plastic and Jane’s skin at his hands and feet, cutting them each in a single motion. Jane’s limbs were free again.

Josh, his work done, climbed back into the van and Red John was about to join him when Jane rolled over onto his belly and pushed himself to his knees. Between the drugs still in his system and the viscous beating he had just endured, it was as far as he was able to manage. He knew it was risky what he was about to do, but he had to take that risk. Things could not end this way, not again, not this way, with Red John having put on his serial murderer acting skills, and then leaving with all hands won. Never again, never - No! Not if he could prevent it. Jane focused his mind on it – drawing on all his experience as a performer and a liar.

Even in this venue with this audience and himself this badly injured, surely he had one last con left in him before he passed out for good? With a shaky voice Jane called to him. “Please, John, please don’t leave me.”

Red John stopped and looked back, his eyes contemplating his victim. “Do as I say and go to your friends, Patrick.” Red John opened the van door and Jane panicked. He had to make Red John stay and watch because it would be the best performance of his life. It had to be. It must be convincing, sincere and authentic – perfect in every way if this was to work.

So Jane went where he never went, down deep into his memories where he kept specific things locked away behind iron walls, where his daughter lay forever asleep on a carpet. That thought, that indescribably horrible memory that had nearly driven him insane with grief; the memory of his darling girl and her tiny body cut open with Red John’s eager knife. Probably the very same knife that the Red killer had held in his hands moments ago and slid across his throat.

Once that vision of his perfect little girl gutted from belly to sternum was firmly in his mind, the tears came easy and kept on coming as he added to the memory; knowing through and through that she had died in pain and terror and probably calling for her daddy - for him.

“No, no, no, no.” Jane said, his voice rising into a soft wail, the tears wetting his cheeks, running down and mixing with the blood on his neck, his voice shaking, his face twisted into a mask of grief that would have impressed Laurence Olivier. “You can’t leave me, you can’t, not again. Please don’t go, please don’t...you always leave - I don’t... I don’t understa-a-a-nd.”

Jane was sitting on his heels now, with his arms wrapped around his chest in a pathetic looking self-hug and rocking slightly, letting the very real grief over the death mask of his very dead daughter mould his face into what would be an award-winning killing blow to even the cruellest of hearts.

Red John was staring at him, and even Jane knew his Oscar-worthy performance had halted Red John momentarily, had even caused some concern in the killer’s glance, not concern as to his victim’s welfare but to his state of mind certainly. Even though all he could see was Red John’s eyes in the growing light, it was clear they were silently asking - What was all this about?

Red John returned to stand within ten feet of Patrick, looking down at him. Jane was extra careful not to let up on the tears or the soft crying, the self-hug or the shaking of his shoulders. In fact, he doubled over again and let the water works gush, weeping openly and repeating under his breath “Please don’t leave me here, please don’t, ple-a-a-se. I don’t know what to do anymore This isn’t- I don’t-I’m n-not-I can’t, puh-please, John...I’d rather die, I’m so- I’ll die...I don’t know wha’ t’do ‘nymore - what a-am I s-s-supposed to do?” Finally Patrick raised his face to his destroyer and let him see the anguish and agony and that it was as heart-breaking-ly real as any Red John had ever seen or caused during the whole of his murderous career.

At this point, Red John was staring at him with incredulity. Jane had given him a show-stopper and his audience of one was ripe and ready for plucking, so Jane topped everything off with a soft, rising wail, the feeble and final cry of a man lost and in desperate need, for help, for direction and advice – even for love. Even if that love came from him, Red John, his destroyer, tormentor and master.

“John,” He whispered it so softly and with such conviction and reluctant affection, only the killer could possibly have heard and believed. Only a murderer with the ego of ten would embrace such flattery and accept it at a debt long owed. “P-please don’t leave me.” Jane shook his head back and forth as though the very idea terrified him. “Whu-what will I do n-o-o-w-w-w...? I’m s-so tired...”

Red John stepped closer, so close Jane could reach out and touch his pant leg – and he did. Tentatively Jane reached out with one trembling hand and, just a little, clutched at Red John’s pant leg. Then Jane gave in to the exhaustion that was bearing down on him and leaned in to rest his tear-wet face against the smooth fabric, still sobbing, his shoulders still shaking.

And Red John, to Jane’s covert triumph manifested only in a quiet racing of his heart, took the bait. He reached down and took Jane in hand, raising him up by grasping his upper arms and gently forcing him to stand.

Jane took the offering and collapsed into Red John’s arms, slipping his own arms in behind and bear hugging him, holding on as though for dear life but still shaking, still crying, giving Red John the second of three acts; that these tears and this shaking was from grateful relief, a grip that said he was beholden to Red John and glad that Red John had not walked away, and was not going to abandoned him. That Red John, as he had once stated, loved him that much.

Jane’s face, body and hands lied and said that, yes, they were one and, no, even though the world might look on and disapprove, even if it was wrong for a victim to have grown to depend on his torturer for bringing back a kind of coherence to his life and to have in an unseen way repaired his extinguished soul, still they should never be apart. The world could look on and wonder, but each was less than he was without the other’s fulfilment. What they meant together was incorporate, it was elusive and beautiful – a pairing of two that bordered the divine.

Red John held him close and whispered to him in the gentlest way imaginable. “Where does this come from, Patrick? You know I will never abandon you.” When he kissed Patrick’s temple, Jane shivered, from shy gratitude Red John would believe, but in fact his body hating the physical gesture to the point of nausea.

“You know I am too fond of you to ever do that.” Red John assured him, touching the scar he had given him with tenderness. “That’s healed rather well, and it’s so beautiful on you. You’re mine, Patrick, forever. I love you, Patrick - don’t you know that by now? I love you.”

Jane nodded into the fabric of Red John’s coat, pretending to believe and sniffing, feigning that his drug-induced weakness was still dominant and that he could barely keep upright without Red John’s all-encompassing arms to hold him there.

Jane hugged him even closer moving his hands higher up his enemy’s hated back as though to better hold on. Then just as Jane felt Red John’s body finally relax into the affectionate embrace, and Red John tightened his grip around Jane’s trembling body, it was time for the third act.

In a lightening quick motion Jane slipped his fingers beneath Red John’s ski mask and yanked it off. All at once Red John gasped and stepped back and Jane did the same only his still drugged and unreliable body betrayed him and he fell flat on his backside, but still he looked, never taking his eyes off Red John’s face for a second, raking in every detail about it possible before Red John turned away or hit him or took out his knife and slashed him open because at this point what difference would it make?

If Red John killed him, then he was dead and beyond worry but if Red John only punished him and let him go anyway, as planned, then Jane had the memory of the hated man’s face carved into his mind forever. Red John’s face would be part of him now, and the hunt would begin again only this time the odds would be even.

Jane was too weak and had lost too much blood at this juncture to think he might overpower Red John or even raise a fist to his family’s murderer, but he had his face. He had his face!

Jane let Red John see his winning smile while he took in every nuance and shadow and mark on the average looking man’s face: Six-one, age forty to forty-five, brown eyes, slightly crooked ski-jump nose, tiny scar above his right upper lip, a map of red capillaries shading both cheeks, receding hair-line, mole on his neck near his left collar bone, thick beard but clean shaven, the beginnings of jowls, two anger lines between his brows whenever he frowned – which Red John was doing as Jane stared and stared.

Jane smiled at him like the man who had just won the last poker hand and all the chips were his now. Then along with triumph in his eyes, Jane laughed softly, enjoying himself. Red John had fallen for the ruse. Jane whispered to him, no longer feeling quite so weak. “Hook, line and sinker!”

There was no need to mock again or say even another word to him; the killer knew he had been thoroughly played. The next instant, Red John hauled back a fist and hit Jane as hard as he could across the temple, sending him straight to the ground, where Jane lay in a painful fog. Red John called to Josh to come which he did. Then Red John had Josh remove his belt, Red John grasping it by the leather end and using the metal end as a weapon, whipping it again and again against the bottom of Jane's naked feet until his whimpering victim passed out.

Red John handed the belt back to his henchman who strung the belt through the loops once more, tightening it. Josh returned to the van while Red John spoke to his unconscious obsession and pulled his ski mask back into place with shaking hands of fury "Another serious mistake, Patrick, but this time, only you will pay. Only you, my little love, only you."

CBI

Jane opened his eyes and it seemed everything was on fire, including his body and the red sun rising, bathing everything around him in shades of puce and ochre. He knew he was badly hurt, not critically, but badly enough that just getting up from the ground in the grey light of early dawn and walking any distance was going to be a problem. But he struggled to his feet anyway. There was nothing else for it but to walk.

Sometime earlier – he didn’t know how long, but not long since the sun was not yet at its full and life-giving yellow - Red John and his man Josh had left him, speeding away in a hail storm of gravel. Jane looked around, stunned to find that he was in the park directly kitty-corner to the CBI offices. It was called Allison Kaine Memorial Park but to the people who worked at the CBI offices, it was just “Lunch-Time Park.” It was the same park where he often came to eat his sandwich at noon or to just sit and think during the high summer days when the offices got too stuffy to do any useful thinking in.

Work started early at CBI for most, and already he could see cars pulling in and people entering the side glass door with their coffee’s-to-go and security pass cards. Jane then saw another small group of people milling toward the entry, discussing their previous nights’ activities and comparing their various kids’ school reports. Friendly comfortable talk with which he had once been familiar.

They didn’t notice when a man with a bloody shirt and face followed them right in through the doors, stumbling a little in his sockless feet.

CBI

“You better get downstairs.”

Lisbon looked up from her desk, ignoring the phone that was already ringing even though it was not yet 6:20 AM. Officer Gerry Holt, one of two officers in charge of building security and usually a man of good humour, sounded urgent.

“What’s going on Gerry?”

“I think your guy’s back.”

Lisbon leaped up from her chair and called over her shoulder when she passed her team’s desks. “Come on!” was all she needed to say to have them scrambling after her to the elevator. All instinctively knew what it was about but all were also afraid of what they might find. No one looked at each other while waiting for the doors to open, nor when they were in the elevator for the two floor ride to the main level. Gerry explained on the way. “He slipped in through the side door with a crowd of other employees. We didn’t notice at first and then when we saw the blood...”

Lisbon hurried to the side-entry guard’s security desk, Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt right behind her. Officer Polson, the other security officer in charge, was not in his seat, but was instead standing twenty feet from the front door, on guard and looking down at someone huddled against the inside wall. The person was almost invisible behind Polson’s thick torso.

At Lisbon and the team’s approach he held up his hand to stop them. “Wait a second.” He counselled, pointed with a jerk of his chin to where Jane sat with blood on his clothes, staring mutely at his own cut feet. “He just wandered in and sat down.” Robert told them quietly. “We didn’t recognise him at first.”

Lisbon could understand why. Jane was a bloody mess, his face dirty and smeared with dried blood.

“I already called for an ambulance but we figured one of you ought to be the one to talk to him.”

Lisbon nodded her thanks to Polson and held a palm to her own team. “Maybe he’s right.” She looked directly at Cho who could not tear his eyes away from Jane or the blood on his shirt. “Maybe only one of us is a good idea - okay? Let’s not startle him.”

Lisbon walked over to Jane, watching for any sign of recognition at her approach. Jane did not look up when she stood over him for a few seconds and so she sat down, crossing her legs. She didn’t touch him. “Hey Jane?” She said.

He looked terrible. His hair was matted, he had scrape marks on one cheek as though he had been dragged across pavement or rocks, and there was a lot of blood on his shirt. And his feet were cut up as though at some recent point during his missing weeks he had walked a mile on tiny shards of glass. Lisbon could not guess what had made the marks.

“Jane?” she tried again. “Patrick?”

At speaking his Christian name, he finally did look at her and she sucked in a breath at the sight of his now visible half cut throat. That’s what had bled so much, she decided, though the bruises on his face, the swelling of his cheek bone and his red, puffy eye on its way to a first class shiner said he had endured more than a cut throat. Odd that Red John had not cut it deeply or finished the job. A change of heart?

Jane sighed, looking at her for a few seconds, recognising her, but then went back to staring at his sore feet. “I don’t know where I left my shoes.” He said, clearly puzzled but his lack of footwear.

Lisbon looked over her shoulder and said to officer Polson. “Can you bring me a clean towel or something for his throat?”

Polson did so and Lisbon held it out to Jane. “Jane? I want to put this against your throat, okay? It’s still bleeding a bit. Is that all right?”

Jane’s eyes were closing. He looked exhausted. Lisbon pressed the cloth against the tender flesh of Jane’s cut throat and asked. “Does that feel better?”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah.” Then his head jerked up, his eyes popping open again as though he had just remembered something terribly important. “Lisbon, I saw his face.”

Lisbon stared back, not entirely sure as to his meaning, though she could haphazard a guess. But it was better to keep him engaged and talking so she asked “Whose face, Jane? You saw whose face?”

He looked at her as though he could not believe that she had not clued in. “Red John.” He said, irritated at his boss. “Red John.” He was slurring his words a little and Lisbon could see he was not going to be conscious for much longer. “I mean, who else have I been looking for the last nine years? Red John, Lisbon. I saw his face. I saw his face.”

“Red John?” She asked, feigning ignorance to try and keep him awake. “The one who took you?”

“Lisbon, are you all right?” Jane frowned, frustrated that she didn’t seem to be listening. His throat hurt and his feet stung badly. “Can somebody find my shoes please? I really like those shoes.”

Lisbon had expected Jane to mention something about Red John, although not exactly what he had revealed, but right now the paramount thing was getting Jane medical attention. “We’ll look for them, I promise. And that’s good, Jane, that you saw his face, that’s really good and we can talk about it later, but don’t you think you need to go to the hospital now?”

Jane’s eyes drifted shut again. “Sure, Lisb’n, wha’ver y’want.” His head dropped to his chest and he stared to fall sideways. Lisbon quickly put herself between Jane and the floor, letting him fall against her shoulder. She heard the ambulance sirens and turned to her team, “He’s asleep.” She said. Weak with relief and a small smile of irony on her lips she put an arm around his shoulders and one hand on his messy hair to hold his head up so he could breath freely, and then waited for the paramedics to arrive. Our missing insomniac is finally asleep.

CBI

Cho sat and waited for Jane to awaken from the mild sedative the attending doctor had administered upon his arrival at Sutter Memorial. The throat wound would heal without stitches as long as Jane did not remove the bandage or stretch his neck too far or twist his head too much. The other injuries would fade over the coming weeks until it appeared as though nothing had happened.

The only cut that was likely to scar was the defensive wound on Jane’s left arm. It had not healed well under the bandage Red John must have applied, the wound that Red John had given him the night Jane disappeared.

“Hey.” Jane said in a whisper.

Cho scooted his chair closer to the bed. “Hey. Feeling better?”

Jane tried to sit up, shaking the cobwebs from his mind. “Sure, sure - hundred percent. I just love the hospital. I want to rent a room here.”

Sarcasm, that was good. Not completely like Jane in humour but better than silence. “Lisbon said you saw Red John’s face.”

“That I did.” He nodded, not forgetting a single detail. “I want a sketch artist in here.”

“I asked Lisbon to arrange that as soon as you woke up.”

Jane spread his hands, not looking at his lover. “I’m awake.”

“Are you all right?”

Jane frowned but still not looking. “Why do you keep asking me that? – I said I’m fine.”

Cho sighed, knowing there was something Jane was not saying. With Jane it was all plausible deniability. Damn the man’s need for secrets. “Fine. I’m glad you’re okay. Van Pelt wants to throw an office party.”

Jane rolled his eyes. “Please tell her no, I don’t want all that fuss, it’s not...needed.”

“Don’t worry. I already talked her out of it.” Cho stood and stole a kiss before Jane could protest. He had a feeling that Jane would have protested, but he didn’t know why. “You’ll be staying with me when the doc’ checks you out of here.” He gathered up his jacket.

“No.” Jane said. His tone left no room for argument. He meant what he said.

Cho looked down at his hands and the jacket draped over them. “This again - back into your hole. Doesn’t make sense, Jane. You shouldn’t be alone.”

Jane looked at Cho, not with hardened eyes but with sad ones. “I didn’t say I didn’t want to...see you, I just don’t want to stay with you.”

Not as much as he wanted but better than nothing at all. “Oh. All right, fine. That’s okay with me, if it’s the way you want it.”

Jane played with his blanket, turning it down inch by inch and then back up, distracting motions to fill up space and time. “Sketch artist?” He prompted.

Cho nodded. “Yeah. I’ll call Lisbon.”

CBI

“Agent Lisbon?”

Van Pelt turned. “Uh, no, but I work for her.”

She entered CBI offices through the main doors and the person in question, Judy Greeson, a diminutive brunette with her hair pulled back into a severe pony tail and one of the agents at County Forensics, fell into step beside her. “Would you mind passing this onto Agent Lisbon then? It’s the results of the hand-writing analysis – the Red John letters – that’s one of your teams’ cases, isn’t?”

Van Pelt took the manila envelope from Judy Greeson. “Yes, yes it is, I can do that, no problem. All clear I guess.” Not a question but Greeson answered anyway.

“Uh, no, actually, I think they found some discrepancies in the letters – not sure what though, I’m just the Fed Ex girl today.” She sounded disgruntled.

Van Pelt looked down at the envelope. “Oh, okay, uh, thanks, I’ll see that she gets it.”

Van Pelt peeked into Lisbon’s office and found it vacant. Taking the envelope to her desk, she caught up on paper work while waiting for Lisbon to return. “Hey, Cho?” She asked when he arrived and draped his jacket around the back of his desk chair.

“Morning.” He said.

“Do you know when Lisbon’s coming in?”

“She’s got a deposition all morning, won’t be in until this afternoon.”

“Oh. ‘Kay thanks.” Van Pelt stared at the envelope. When Cho left to get his first coffee for the day from the kitchen, curiosity got the best of her and she slid the one page report out, quickly reading it over. What she read didn’t make sense. Only it had to. Only, what could, or should, she do about it?

Things had been so upside-down with Jane gone and then when he was in the hospital after that and now that he was back and better, at least they assumed he was better, things were back to normal. Jane had been given a clean bill of health and was free to resume work – he would be in today. But this report would change all that.

Van Pelt felt the sweat break out on her forehead. She had no idea why Jane had done what she suspected he had done, especially when it was clear Red John had hurt him – no one gets the shit kicked out of them voluntarily.

This could get him fired or brought up on charges or worse. Van Pelt struggled with a decision. Sometimes she hated Jane for the things he did. Other times she understood him, she thought, better than the others did. Perhaps because she knew what betrayal was, and how deep the agony went when you have to watch your lover die and knowing it was because of you. Or maybe that wasn’t the reason, maybe she just felt sorry for him.

One thing she was certain about, she did not want to see Jane in any more trouble and she knew Lisbon would feel the same. The difference was Lisbon would feel obligated to follow the letter of the law, while Van Pelt felt she had the luxury of stretching those boundaries a little. It would not be the first time.

Why was nothing ever easy or simple? “Goddamnit!” She swore to herself, her fingers pausing over the keys only for a moment, and then she began to type.

CBI

“Jane?” Van Pelt greeted him as he limped in on a hospital issued-cane. His cut feet were healing as well as the rest of him, physically anyway.

He smiled at her a little. “Grace.” He headed toward the men’s room, and Van Pelt looked around to make sure no one watching, following him in.

Jane was surprised to see his work mate enter the bathroom with him and then bolt the door. “Um, you’ve got the wrong room.” He said, looking confused.

“But I’ve got the right liar.” She quipped.

Jane stared at her, opening his mouth but she cut him off.

“Don’t lie to me Jane; I know you wrote that second letter supposedly from Red John.” Van Pelt kept on talking not giving him an inch to speak or defend himself, or lie some more. “And the forensic team thinks so, too. I mean they don’t know you wrote it but they know it didn’t come from Red John.” She handed him the sheet. “This is their report saying so, I haven’t let Lisbon or anyone else read it yet.” She stopped talking and let him read it over.

Jane merely glanced at it. “Why are you showing it to me?”

Van Pelt took the plunge into obstructing evidence and intercepting and then falsifying a report. “Do you have any idea how much trouble I could get in to if anyone learns what we’re about to do, especially Lisbon or Bertram?”

Jane knew. “Disciplined, fired, and charged, cast out, yes, I can imagine the many ways this could go when I started this whole...”

“...Series of horrible and painful lies?” Van Pelt finished for him.

Jane looked away to the wall. “Well, I guess you could call it –“

“-Shut up Jane.” She handed him a second sheet. “This is the report I’m actually going to deliver to Lisbon.”

Jane looked over it as she wished him to. She had changed only those words necessary to reverse the final analysis.

“It’ll say that both letters were written by Red John.” Van Pelt explained what he was already seeing. She had made an excellent effort on the forensic agent’s signature. “Grace, you don’t have to do this. I can take my own knocks.”

Van Pelt was on the verge of tears but he could tell they were angry tears, disappointed tears. “I’m tired of seeing this team broken up and hurt by Red john, by all this lying stuff – by you.” She snatched back the report that was a lie. “So I’m only going to say this once, Jane, don’t pull this crap anymore, okay? Don’t you know how much it hurts us? Don’t you have any idea, even after four years, how much we care about you? It hurts, Jane. You’re hurting us.”

She had made her point. Grace was earnest and furious, hating and loving him at the same time. It was clearly there in her eyes; hate and love, a delicate mix.

“We’re a family. We’re your family now. Stop hurting your family.” She bit her lip, wondering how much more she ought to say about anything. Spinning on her heel she left him there beside the soap dispenser saying on the way out the door. “By the way, Cho has an idea about who Red John might be. Maybe you should talk to him.”

CBI

Jane found Cho and asked him. In response Cho pulled out a folder from the bottom drawer of his desk. “We don’t know if it’ll pan out, but we figured it was worth a shot.”

Jane glanced through the folder’s contents, and recognised some of the names. “These are people my father worked with.” He said. “And you waited until now to let me in on this?”

Cho asked “How forthcoming have you been? I can think of a dozen times you should have said something or called and didn’t. Keeping this from you was our decision. We would have told you when we thought you were ready.”

“I saw his face, Cho; I’d say that makes me ready.”

“Sure.” Cho did not sound convinced.

Jane took the folder back to his sofa and began reading through its contents. Momentarily Van Pelt brought him a cup of tea, thrusting it under his nose. “Here.” She said coolly. “You’re on a cane so I figured...”

Jane took it as though it might sting him, knowing it was no apology from her to him, just a truce. “Thanks.” He said, “For everything.”

“I should kick you but, like I said, you’re on a cane.” She said and returned to her desk with Cho looking on a little shocked.

Jane raised worried eyebrows and sipped from his cup. “It’s good.” He said to her trying to soothe her rough edges, and then set the cup aside not touching it any further.

Cho frowned and whispered “It’s not good? You lied about the tea?” Unheard of. If Jane didn’t like a tea for some reason –any reason - he let it be known.

Jane shrugged. “No honey in it.”

“At least it’s a good lie.”

Jane kept his eyes on the Red John folder, tucking in the sketch artist’s rendition of the serial killer Red John. Finally the bastard had a face. “Yeah.”

END   
Next Case-file #4: Rouge

Some things in Red Matter and in Red Matter and Shatter will be explored further in the case-file: Little Red Lies


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